Introduction
A career in IBM Software means you'll be part of a team that transforms our customer's challenges into industry-leading solutions. We are an infinitely curious team, always seeking new possibilities, and dedicated to creating the world's leading AI-powered, cloud-native software solutions. Our renowned legacy creates endless global opportunities for our network of IBMers. We are a team of deep product experts, ensuring exceptional client experiences, with a focus on delivery, excellence, and obsession over customer outcomes. This position involves contributing to HashiCorp's offerings, now part of IBM, which empower organizations to automate and secure multi-cloud and hybrid environments. You will join a team managing the lifecycle of infrastructure and security, enhancing IBM's cloud solutions to ensure enterprises achieve efficiency, security, and scalability in their cloud journey.
Your role and responsibilities
The Principal Engineer for Terraform Core Platform and Providers is a senior technical leadership position tasked with solving the most ambitious, complex technical and organizational challenges related to the foundation of Terraform's open source project and its provider ecosystem. You will act as a force multiplier, operating with an intentionally broad and flexible mandate to define and guide the evolution of the Terraform Core engine, the configuration language (HCL), the state management system, and the Provider Protocol
This role requires a blend of deep domain expertise in infrastructure-as-code (IaC) principles, highly scalable distributed systems, and the ability to define the technical standards for millions of Terraform users and thousands of integrations
Key Responsibilities
As a Principal Engineer, your engagement will be dynamic, utilizing the six roles defined in the Principal Engineer Engagement Framework (IPG). Your core responsibilities, mapped to the engagement model, include:
Role Category
Focus Area
Description
Setting Strategic Direction (Sponsor & Catalyst)
Core Engine Strategy
Lead and own the delivery and architectural definition of major shifts in Terraform's core functionality, such as new language features, provider extensibility models, or cross-product standards. Drive new, ambiguous ideas for core performance improvements or architectural refactoring from concept to organizational buy-in.
Providing Architectural Guidance (Guide & Advisor)
Protocol and API Design
Serve as a deep domain expert on Terraform's internals, providing sustained, ongoing architectural guidance to multiple Core and Provider teams. Produce exemplary technical artifacts and RFCs that define the future of the Provider Protocol and Terraform's interaction model.
Ensuring Execution Quality (Catcher & Participant)
Stability and Performance
Quickly analyze and rescue troubled projects related to core stability, state management bugs, or performance regressions under tight deadlines. Actively contribute hands-on when necessary, engaging in coding, detailed design reviews, and unsticking highly complex technical blockers within the Terraform CLI.
Required technical and professional expertise
Experience: Extensive experience in software development, architecture, and distributed systems, with a proven track record of shipping complex, large-scale projects.
Technical Depth: Deep expertise in systems programming (e.g., Go), compiler design or language parsing (e.g., HCL), and low-level IaC concepts, including state management and distributed consensus patterns.
Leadership: Demonstrated ability to lead technical strategy, mentor senior engineers, and influence product and engineering leadership across multiple teams.
Communication: Exceptional communication skills, capable of translating complex technical concepts into clear, strategic roadmaps for both technical and non-technical audiences.
Preferred technical and professional experience
IBM is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an equal-opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, caste, genetics, pregnancy, disability, neurodivergence, age, veteran status, or other characteristics. IBM is also committed to compliance with all fair employment practices regarding citizenship and immigration status.
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