Docusign brings agreements to life. Over 1.5 million customers and more than a billion people in over 180 countries use Docusign solutions to accelerate the process of doing business and simplify people’s lives. With intelligent agreement management, Docusign unleashes business-critical data that is trapped inside of documents. Until now, these were disconnected from business systems of record, costing businesses time, money, and opportunity. Using Docusign’s Intelligent Agreement Management platform, companies can create, commit, and manage agreements with solutions created by the #1 company in e-signature and contract lifecycle management (CLM).

We are seeking a Sr. Principal Engineer to lead the architectural design and hands-on development of our next-generation cloud platform, built on top of major cloud providers such as Azure, AWS, and GCP. This role combines deep technical expertise with strategic leadership, with a 40% hands-on and 60% strategic focus. You will drive innovation in our control plane, CI/CD pipelines, Kubernetes-based orchestration, networking, storage, and abstraction layers to deliver a scalable, secure, and efficient platform that empowers customers to build and deploy applications seamlessly.

As a technical visionary, you will dive into complex codebases, prototype solutions, and provide strategic direction for the platform. You will collaborate with cross-functional teams, mentor senior engineers, and shape the long-term technical roadmap, ensuring our platform remains a leader in the cloud-native ecosystem.

This position is an individual contributor role reporting to the GVP, Cloud & Production Engineering.

Responsibility

• Design, implement, and optimize critical components of the cloud platform, including control plane, Kubernetes operators, CI/CD pipelines, networking, and storage systems

• Write high-quality, production-ready code in languages like Go, Python, or Java to build abstraction layers and integrate with Azure, AWS, and GCP services

• Prototype and validate innovative solutions for multi-cloud challenges, such as resource orchestration, service discovery, and scalable storage

• Troubleshoot and resolve complex technical issues in distributed systems, ensuring high performance and reliability.

• Define the technical vision and multi-year roadmap for the cloud platform, aligning with business goals and industry trends

• Architect scalable and resilient systems leveraging Kubernetes, service meshes, and cloud-native technologies to simplify multi-cloud operations

• Lead the design of abstraction layers to provide a unified, developer-friendly interface across Azure, AWS, and GCP

• Drive adoption of best practices in observability, security, and compliance (e.g., SOC 2, GDPR) across the platform

• Mentor senior engineers and foster a culture of technical excellence, innovation, and collaboration

• Partner with product, engineering, and operations teams to align technical solutions with customer needs and business objectives

• Represent the company in industry forums, open-source communities, or technical conferences to showcase our platform’s capabilities

• Stay ahead of emerging trends in cloud computing, containerization, and distributed systems, integrating cutting-edge technologies into the platform

• Lead research and prototyping efforts to address complex challenges in multi-cloud environments

Hybrid: Employee divides their time between in-office and remote work. Access to an office location is required. (Frequency: Minimum 2 days per week; may vary by team but will be weekly in-office expectation)

Positions at Docusign are assigned a job designation of either In Office, Hybrid or Remote and are specific to the role/job. Preferred job designations are not guaranteed when changing positions within Docusign. Docusign reserves the right to change a position's job designation depending on business needs and as permitted by local law.

Basic

• 15+ years of software engineering experience, with at least 7 years focused on cloud platforms, distributed systems, or infrastructure development, and a proven track record of hands-on contributions

• Experienc with cloud providers (Azure, AWS, GCP) and their core services (compute, storage, networking, IAM, etc.)

• Experience with Kubernetes, including custom operators, CRDs, cluster federation, and service mesh (e.g., Istio, Linkerd)

• Experience designing and optimizing CI/CD pipelines using tools like Jenkins, GitLab CI, ArgoCD, or Tekton

• Experience with networking (e.g., VPC, load balancing, SDN, DNS) and storage systems (e.g., S3, EBS, Blob Storage) in cloud environments

• Proven ability to design and implement abstraction layers for multi-cloud management, simplifying complex workflows for developers and operators

• Experience programming in Go, Python, or Java, and with infrastructure-as-code tools (e.g., Terraform, Pulumi)

• Demonstrated ability to define and execute a technical roadmap for large-scale, cloud-native platforms

• Experience leading complex technical projects and mentoring engineering teams to deliver high-impact solutions

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent experience)

Preferred

• PhD or advanced research experience

• Exceptional ability to tackle ambiguous, high-stakes challenges in distributed systems with a hands-on approach

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to articulate complex technical concepts to technical and non-technical stakeholders

• Experience building control planes for cloud platforms or PaaS solutions

• Contributions to open-source projects in the cloud-native ecosystem (e.g., Kubernetes, CNCF projects)

• Expertise in observability tools (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, ELK stack) and chaos engineering practices

• Deep knowledge of security best practices, including zero-trust architecture and compliance frameworks (e.g., SOC 2, GDPR)

Pay for this position is based on a number of factors including geographic location and may vary depending on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience.

Based on applicable legislation, the below details pay ranges in the following locations:

California: $271,900.00 - $404,950.00 base salary

Washington, Maryland, New Jersey and New York (including NYC metro area): $254,400.00 - $363,700.00 base salary

This role is also eligible for the following:

• Bonus: Sales personnel are eligible for variable incentive pay dependent on their achievement of pre-established sales goals. Non-Sales roles are eligible for a company bonus plan, which is calculated as a percentage of eligible wages and dependent on company performance.
• Stock: This role is eligible to receive Restricted Stock Units (RSUs).

Global benefits provide options for the following:

• Paid Time Off: earned time off, as well as paid company holidays based on region
• Paid Parental Leave: take up to six months off with your child after birth, adoption or foster care placement
• Full Health Benefits Plans: options for 100% employer paid and minimum employee contribution health plans from day one of employment
• Retirement Plans: select retirement and pension programs with potential for employer contributions
• Learning and Development: options for coaching, online courses and education reimbursements
• Compassionate Care Leave: paid time off following the loss of a loved one and other life-changing events

Working here

Docusign is committed to building trust and making the world more agreeable for our employees, customers and the communities in which we live and work. You can count on us to listen, be honest, and try our best to do what’s right, every day. At Docusign, everything is equal.

We each have a responsibility to ensure every team member has an equal opportunity to succeed, to be heard, to exchange ideas openly, to build lasting relationships, and to do the work of their life. Best of all, you will be able to feel deep pride in the work you do, because your contribution helps us make the world better than we found it. And for that, you’ll be loved by us, our customers, and the world in which we live.

Accommodation

Docusign is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities in our job application procedures. If you need such an accommodation, or a religious accommodation, during the application process, please contact us at accommodations@docusign.com.

If you experience any issues, concerns, or technical difficulties during the application process please get in touch with our Talent organization at taops@docusign.com for assistance.

Applicant and Candidate Privacy Notice

This position is not eligible for employment in the following states: Alaska, Hawaii, Maine, Mississippi, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia and Wyoming.

It's important to us that we build a talented team that is as diverse as our customers and where all employees feel a deep sense of belonging and thrive. We encourage great talent who bring a range of perspectives to apply for our open positions. Docusign is an Equal Opportunity Employer and makes hiring decisions based on experience, skill, aptitude and a can-do approach. We will not discriminate based on race, ethnicity, color, age, sex, religion, national origin, ancestry, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, genetic information, physical or mental disability, registered domestic partner status, caregiver status, marital status, veteran or military status, or any other legally protected category.

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