Senior Principal Engineer, AI Foundations

About the role

Atlassian's Dev Infra team builds the tools, platforms and infrastructure that every engineer uses to ship software. It is hiring a Senior Principal Engineer for its AI Foundations team, which makes AI work well across engineering by measuring it, feeding it the right context and running it on the right compute. The work reaches far because Dev Infra builds and stress tests the same class of developer tools that Atlassian sells.

Key responsibilities

• Set the technical vision for how Atlassian enables and builds AI across the software development lifecycle and turn it into infrastructure teams adopt.
• Prototype the hardest parts yourself, write code and set the engineering bar others build to.
• Build foundational systems for AI: how to measure whether it works, how to give it the right context, and how to run it reliably and affordably at scale.
• Give engineers and leaders real signal instead of hype, so the company can see where AI genuinely helps.
• Partner with engineering and product teams to shape internal tools and AI capabilities shipped to customers.
• Decide when to buy a proven solution, when to build alongside product teams, and when a problem deserves something purpose built.
• Mentor senior engineers, align principals across the organization and raise the ceiling for what the team believes is possible.

Required profile

• 12+ years in hands-on technical leadership roles, with end-to-end ownership across the software development lifecycle.
• A track record of setting technical direction across a function or organization and leading many engineers.
• Strong judgment on cost, scale and return on investment; treats efficiency as a real engineering problem.
• Experience influencing decision makers and turning ambiguity into a clear plan.
• Excitement for an open, unmapped space and for helping invent software with AI.

Required skills

• Deep expertise building large-scale systems in distributed systems and cloud infrastructure, developer platforms, data and measurement systems, or applied AI.
• Nice to have: hands-on experience with modern AI systems such as large language models, agents or AI developer tools.
• Nice to have: background in developer experience, developer productivity, or the tooling and infrastructure behind CI and CD.

What we offer

• Base pay for new hires depending on location: Zone A $243,900-$318,425, Zone B $219,510-$286,583, Zone C $202,437-$264,293.
• Possible eligibility for benefits, bonuses, commissions and equity.
• Health and wellbeing resources, paid volunteer days and other perks.