Sr. Principal Software Engineer (Automation/Tooling)

HOME CHINA

SHANGHAI

Full time

R56769

At Cadence, we hire and develop leaders and innovators who want to make an impact on the world of technology. Position Summary We are seeking a Senior Principal Software Engineer to provide strategic technical leadership in tooling, automation, and DevOps for large-scale engineering software delivery. This role is responsible for architecting and driving scalable developer productivity platforms, build and release automation, CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure automation, quality gates, observability, and engineering workflow modernization. The successful candidate will act as a senior technical authority and hands-on individual contributor, partnering across the various engineering, QA, architecture, and IT teams to deliver build and QA tools. Key Responsibilities • Architect, design, and lead enterprise-scale tooling, automation, and DevOps solutions that improve engineering productivity, software quality, release efficiency, and operational reliability. • Provide technical leadership for CI/CD pipelines, build systems, release automation, test automation frameworks, deployment workflows, environment provisioning, and developer productivity platforms. • Drive automation across the software development life cycle, including requirements traceability, code integration, static analysis, automated testing, packaging, release validation, deployment, monitoring, and feedback loops. • Establish DevOps best practices for source control strategy, branching and merging, build reproducibility, artifact management, configuration management, infrastructure as code, secrets management, and secure software delivery. • Partner with engineering, QA, security, IT, architecture, and product teams to translate business and engineering needs into scalable technical solutions and implementation roadmaps. • Guide and mentor engineers on automation design, DevOps practices, SDLC discipline, Agile execution, code quality, testing strategy, observability, and continuous improvement. • Communicate technical strategy, tradeoffs, risks, metrics, and execution plans clearly to senior stakeholders and engineering leadership. Required Qualifications Education • Master’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, Information Systems, or a related technical discipline is required. Experience • 15+ years of software engineering experience, including significant experience leading tooling, automation, DevOps, build/release engineering, developer productivity, or engineering infrastructure initiatives. • Demonstrated expertise across the full software development life cycle, including planning, design, implementation, code review, integration, testing, release, deployment, operations, maintenance, and continuous improvement. • Strong proficiency with Agile development practices, including sprint planning, backlog refinement, estimation, iterative delivery, retrospectives, cross-functional collaboration, and metrics-driven execution. • Deep experience designing and modernizing CI/CD pipelines, build automation, test automation, release orchestration, deployment workflows, and engineering productivity systems for large-scale software products. • Hands-on experience with infrastructure automation, configuration management, environment provisioning, artifact management, dependency management, and reproducible build systems. • Experience establishing quality gates, automated validation, static and dynamic analysis, security scanning, compliance checks, release readiness criteria, and operational monitoring within engineering workflows. • Strong background in software development using languages such as C++, Python, C#, Java, Go, PowerShell, Bash, or equivalent languages used for product development and engineering automation. • Experience working with distributed engineering teams and aligning tooling, DevOps, and automation strategy across multiple products, platforms, and stakeholders. • Practical experience using AI-assisted software development tools such as GitHub Copilot, Cursor, or similar tools to improve coding productivity, code review efficiency, documentation, and engineering workflows. Technical Skills • Expert-level proficiency with DevOps toolchains such as Git, Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, Jenkins, GitLab CI/CD, TeamCity, Artifactory, Nexus, Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, Ansible, or equivalent technologies. • Strong programming and scripting skills for automation, tooling, and infrastructure integration using Python, PowerShell, Bash, C++, C#, Java, Go, or comparable languages. • Hands-on experience on Windows and Linux platforms, including build configuration, deployment automation, diagnostics, performance analysis, and cross-platform engineering workflows. • Strong knowledge of SDLC governance, Agile engineering practices, CI/CD maturity models, release management, branching strategies, code review workflows, automated quality gates, and secure development practices. • Experience with observability, telemetry, logging, metrics, alerting, reliability engineering, incident analysis, and continuous feedback mechanisms for engineering systems. • Familiarity with cloud and virtualization platforms such as Azure, AWS, VMware, or equivalent environments used for build, test, deployment, and engineering infrastructure automation. Soft Skills • Strong communication and collaboration skills. • Problem-solving and analytical thinking. • Ability to work independently and in a team environment. • Strong organizational and time-management skills.N/A We’re doing work that matters. Help us solve what others can’t.

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Cadence plays a critical role in creating the technologies that modern life depends on. We are a global electronic design automation company, providing software, hardware, and intellectual property to design advanced semiconductor chips that enable our customers create revolutionary products and experiences.

Thanks to the outstanding caliber of the Cadence team and the empowering culture that we have cultivated for over 25 years, Cadence continues to be recognized by Fortune Magazine as one of the 100 Best Companies to Work For. 
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Cadence 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, sex, age, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, status as a veteran, basis of disability, or any other protected class.