Principal Software Engineer-Student LifeCycle Services

If you’re passionate about building a better future for individuals, communities, and our country—and you’re committed to working hard to play your part in building that future—consider WGU as the next step in your career.

Driven by a mission to expand access to higher education through online, competency-based degree programs, WGU is also committed to being a great place to work for a diverse workforce of student-focused professionals. The university has pioneered a new way to learn in the 21st century, one that has received praise from academic, industry, government, and media leaders. Whatever your role, working for WGU gives you a part to play in helping students graduate, creating a better tomorrow for themselves and their families.

The salary range for this position takes into account the wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions including but not limited to skill sets; experience and training; licensure and certifications; and other business and organizational needs.

At WGU, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for their position, and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case. A reasonable estimate of the current range is:

Grade: Technical 412

Pay Range: $180,300.00 - $279,500.00

Job Description

The Principal Software Engineer is a position of technical expertise, influence, and leadership in the technology realm. The position will be required to apply their expert knowledge to ensure best practices and well-engineered architecture across the University. They will also be a key stakeholder and initiator of major changes to processes, engineering practices, and system administration. This position will be required to work in a space of solving critical issues and initiatives across multiple departments. It will require an extensive and deep understanding of cutting-edge practices and innovative approaches to problems. Principal Software Engineers are also tasked with establishing and maintaining a positive and productive culture based on the WGU Leadership Principles.

If you’re passionate about building a better future for individuals, communities, and our country—and you’re committed to working hard to play your part in building that future—consider WGU as the next step in your career.

Driven by a mission to expand access to higher education through online, competency-based degree programs, WGU is also committed to being a great place to work for a diverse workforce of student-focused professionals. The university has pioneered a new way to learn in the 21st century, one that has received praise from academic, industry, government, and media leaders. Whatever your role, working for WGU gives you a part to play in helping students graduate, creating a better tomorrow for themselves and their families.

The salary range for this position takes into account the wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions including but not limited to skill sets; experience and training; licensure and certifications; and other business and organizational needs.

At WGU, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for their position, and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case. A reasonable estimate of the current range is:

Grade: Technical 412

Pay Range: $180,300.00 - $279,500.00

Job Description

The Principal Software Engineer is the primary technical leader of the department. This is a practitioner who ships production software, earns credibility through results, and sets the standard others follow. The Principal works inside the systems they influence, understands their limitations from firsthand experience, and translates that into action that resolves problems rather than merely identifying them.

This role demands expertise in AI-assisted development, agentic engineering, cloud-native architecture, and platform thinking. The Principal evaluates every technical decision through the build, buy, borrow, or bot lens, understanding what is fiscally responsible, operationally sustainable, and fastest to value.

The Principal holds the trust of engineering teams, product partners, and executive leadership. They influence through example: building prototypes, delivering working software, and taking ownership when critical issues arise. This person must be fluent in business fundamentals (P&L, cost of delay, unit economics) and connect engineering decisions to business results. The ideal candidate brings a track record of delivering at scale within large enterprise environments, ideally across more than one industry vertical. They maintain a culture of accountability, velocity, and quality grounded in the WGU Leadership Principles. Success in this role is defined by delivery: what ships, what improves, and what problems get solved.

Job Duties

• Partner with engineering and product leadership to define technical strategy and delivery roadmaps that improve the student experience at scale

• Build and ship production-grade software while establishing engineering standards others follow

• Lead Agile delivery practices that balance rigorous planning with rapid execution and predictable outcomes

• Design and evolve cloud-native architectures with strong emphasis on scalability, observability, reliability, security, and operational supportability

• Evaluate technical decisions through a build, buy, borrow, or bot lens with focus on speed-to-value, sustainability, and fiscal responsibility

• Mentor engineers on modern software engineering practices, AI-assisted development workflows, and emerging technologies

• Prototype new tools, frameworks, and architectural patterns through proof-of-value initiatives

• Drive engineering excellence across multiple teams by establishing repeatable delivery patterns and operational standards

• Partner closely with infrastructure, cloud, security, architecture, and product teams as a peer technical leader

• Identify architectural inefficiencies and technical debt, proposing practical and cost-effective solutions grounded in data

• Communicate technical strategy, dependencies, tradeoffs, and risks clearly to executive leadership

• Support operational readiness, incident response, and day-2 supportability across enterprise systems

• Lead through accountability, urgency, ownership, and attention to detail

• Participate in critical operational events and provide leadership during high-impact incidents when needed

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Software Engineering, or related field

• 12+ years of progressive software engineering experience including architecture, delivery leadership, and technical mentorship across multiple teams

• Experience building and operating web applications using Java, REST APIs, SQL, and Git in enterprise environments

• Experience designing and delivering system integrations with third-party and internal platforms

• Track record in large-scale enterprise IT organizations with established operational processes

• Equivalent relevant experience may substitute for education (1 year experience per 1 year education, at hiring manager discretion)

Preferred Qualifications

• Master’s Degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related field

• Experience with Kafka/Confluent and integration middleware (Apache Camel, MuleSoft, or similar)

• Hands-on AWS experience: ECS/EKS, Lambda, SNS/SQS, API Gateway, Terraform

• Spring Boot, Kubernetes, and container orchestration in production

• Observability stacks (Dynatrace, Datadog, or similar) including custom metrics and SLO management

• Familiarity with AI/ML platforms, LLM integration, and agentic frameworks

• Higher education, EdTech, or regulated industry experience

• ITIL v4 Foundation or higher; AWS Solutions Architect or CKA certificatio