Sr. Principal Software Dev Engineer

A Little About Us:
We build, enhance, and maintain one of the highest scaling email platforms on the planet. The Core Mail Data team builds and operates the data platform that powers Yahoo Mail’s back end. We own the services and infrastructure responsible for storing and serving message metadata, message bodies, and attachments, as well as large‑scale data migration and mailbox metadata systems, all on top of GCP (Spanner, GCS, GKE). As part of this team, you will design, build, and run highly available distributed systems that support hundreds of millions of users, maintain production readiness and BCP for multi‑region deployments, evolve schemas and data models at multi‑petabyte scale, and collaborate closely with Core Mail Services, SRE, and other Mail orgs to deliver reliable, low‑latency data access for every mail experience.
Come join this amazing team of Engineers, Product Managers and Designers to work on next generation innovative experiences transforming how users connect with each other every day! 

We’re looking for a Senior Principal Software Engineer to shape the architecture and technical direction of one of Yahoo’s largest and most critical systems. In this role, you’ll act as both a strategic technical leader and a hands-on architect, driving innovation and engineering excellence across Core Mail Services.

• Lead the architecture and design of large-scale, high-impact systems that power Yahoo Mail and related services.

• Provide technical direction and architectural guidance across multiple teams, setting standards and best practices for scalability, security, and performance.

• Mentor and guide Principal and Senior Engineers, helping them grow as technical leaders and ensuring strong alignment across teams.

• Partner with Product, Engineering, and Operations leaders to influence the roadmap, align architecture with business goals, and deliver measurable impact.

• Dive deep when needed — reviewing designs, writing code, building proofs of concept, and resolving complex technical challenges.

• Drive cross-org collaboration, aligning architecture across partner teams to improve interoperability, shared frameworks, and long-term maintainability.

• Champion innovation by evaluating emerging technologies, identifying technical risks, and driving continuous improvements in system design and developer productivity.

• Drive the adoption and development of AI solutions to enhance system reliability and developer productivity.

• Stay current with evolving AI-assisted development tools and help define best practices for AI-assisted development.

• Foster a culture of engineering excellence, collaboration, and accountability across the organization.
   

You are a seasoned technical leader with a track record of architecting and scaling complex distributed systems. You lead through influence, bring clarity to ambiguity, and thrive in highly collaborative environments. You combine strategic thinking with hands-on execution and are passionate about building systems that stand the test of time.

• 12+ years of professional software engineering experience, including deep expertise in architecting distributed, high-performance systems.

• 5+ years providing technical leadership across multiple teams or large-scale systems.

• Proficiency in Java or C++ and solid experience with object-oriented design principles.

• Deep understanding of Data Structures, Algorithms, OS concepts, and Networking.

• Proven experience designing cloud-native architectures (GCP or AWS preferred).

• Experience developing on Unix/Linux platforms.

• Excellent communication skills — able to influence senior leaders, guide engineers, and communicate complex concepts clearly.

• A collaborative mindset with a passion for mentoring, learning, and continuous improvement.

• Proven expertise in the seamless integration of AI-driven coding agents and AI teams within existing development workflows, with an emphasis on enhancing debugging efficiency, accelerating code refactoring initiatives, optimizing code development cycles, and supporting strategic architectural exploration

• BS/MS in Computer Science or equivalent practical experience.
   

• Experience designing large-scale APIs, microservices, and event-driven systems.

• Familiarity with REST API development (Jersey, Servlets 3.0, etc.).

• Expertise in multi-threaded programming, concurrency control, and performance optimization.

• Experience operating web-scale systems with millions of users or high data volumes.

• Knowledge of modern DevOps practices, CI/CD, observability, and infrastructure automation.

Important notes for your attention

Applications: 

All applicants must apply for Yahoo openings direct with Yahoo.  We do not authorize any external agencies in India to handle candidates’ applications.   No agency nor individual may charge candidates for any efforts they make on an applicant’s behalf in the hiring process.  

Our internal recruiters will reach out to you directly to discuss the next steps if we determine that the role is a good fit for you.  Selected candidates will go through formal interviews and assessments arranged by Yahoo direct.  

Offer Distributions: 

Our electronic offer letter and documents will be issued through our system for e-signatures, not via individual emails.

Yahoo is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to, and will not be discriminated against based on age, race, gender, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status, disability or any other protected category. Yahoo will consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with applicable law. Yahoo is dedicated to providing an accessible environment for all candidates during the application process and for employees during their employment. If you need accessibility assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability, please submit a request via the Accommodation Request Form (www.yahooinc.com/careers/contact-us.html) or call +1.866.772.3182. Requests and calls received for non-disability related issues, such as following up on an application, will not receive a response.

Yahoo has a high degree of flexibility around employee location and hybrid working. In fact, our flexible-hybrid approach to work is one of the things our employees rave about. Most roles don’t require specific regular patterns of in-person office attendance. If you join Yahoo, you may be asked to attend (or travel to attend) on-site work sessions, team-building, or other in-person events. When these occur, you’ll be given notice to make arrangements. 

If you’re curious about how this factors into this role, please discuss with the recruiter.

Currently work for Yahoo? Please apply on our internal career site.