Senior Principal Engineer, Platform Engineering

Senior Principal Engineer, Platform Engineering

Fastly helps people stay better connected with the things they love. Fastly’s edge cloud platform enables customers to create great digital experiences quickly, securely, and reliably by processing, serving, and securing our customers’ applications as close to their end-users as possible — at the edge of the Internet. The platform is designed to take advantage of the modern internet, to be programmable, and to support agile software development. Fastly’s customers include many of the world’s most prominent companies, including GitHub, Yelp, Paramount, and JetBlue.

We're building a more trustworthy Internet. Come join us.

Fastly’s Platform Engineering team builds the foundations that enable engineers to ship quickly, safely, and reliably at scale. As a Senior Principal Engineer, Platform Engineering, you will set technical direction and lead cross‑organizational initiatives that strengthen our platform, developer experience, and operational excellence. You’ll partner closely with Engineering peers to remove friction, standardize best practices, and deliver paved roads that accelerate product teams. This is a highly cross‑functional and hands-on role representing the Platform Engineering org, reporting to the Senior Director of Engineering.

What You'll Do

• Lead architecture and technical direction for Platform Engineering initiatives spanning build, deploy, runtime, observability, Security and developer experience
• Partner with Engineering, SRE, Security, and Product teams to align roadmaps, priorities, and success metrics across the company
• Drive cross‑org programs from concept to delivery (e.g., service templates/golden paths, CI/CD modernization, reliability and cost efficiency improvements)
• Define and evolve platform standards (APIs, operational readiness, SLOs/SLAs, incident learnings) and ensure adoption through tooling and enablement
• Mentor and amplify senior engineers and tech leads; raise the bar for design reviews, technical writing, and engineering rigor
• Communicate progress, risks, and decisions clearly to stakeholders and leadership; represent Platform Engineering in technical forums

What We're Looking For

• 12+ years of related professional software engineering experience, including designing and operating distributed systems in production
• Demonstrated success leading complex, cross‑functional technical initiatives with broad organizational impact
• Deep expertise in at least two of: cloud infrastructure, Kubernetes/container platforms, CI/CD systems, networking/service connectivity, observability, security, developer tooling
• Strong systems design and architecture skills with a pragmatic approach to tradeoffs, risk management, and incremental delivery
• Excellent written and verbal communication; ability to influence without authority and align diverse stakeholders
• Commitment to building diverse and inclusive teams and an environment where engineers can do their best work

Impress Us Further

• Experience building internal developer platforms or “paved roads” at scale (e.g., service catalogs, self‑service infrastructure, standardized delivery pipelines)
• Background in high‑performance networking/edge/CDN systems or globally distributed traffic platforms
• Strong SRE practices: SLOs, error budgets, incident response, and continuous improvement loops
• Experience with infrastructure‑as‑code (e.g., Terraform), policy‑as‑code, and security automation
• Track record of driving adoption through enablement: docs, workshops, office hours, and partner engagement

Work Hours & Location

This position will require you to be available during core business hours and occasional nights and weekends as needed for on call support. The preferred hybrid locations for this position are San Francisco, CA; Denver, CO; and New York, NY. Fastly currently embraces a largely hybrid model for most roles which allows employees flexibility to split their time between the office and home. We are also willing to consider highly qualified remote candidates in the United States. This position will require travel as required by your manager.

Salary & Benefits

The estimated salary range for this position is $287,570 to $345,084. Starting salary may vary based on permissible, non-discriminatory factors such as experience, skills, qualifications, and location. This role may be eligible to participate in Fastly’s equity and discretionary bonus programs. We offer a comprehensive benefits package including medical, dental, and vision insurance, family planning, mental health support, EAP, Life, Disability, and Accident Insurance, Flexible Vacation, up to 18 days of accrued paid sick leave, 401(k) (including company match), and an Employee Stock Purchase Program. For 2026, we offer 11 paid local holidays and 12 paid company wellness days.

Why Fastly?

Fastly is a small company with a big reach, impacting a tremendous user base and supporting open source projects. We value distributed teams, with offices and employees globally. New hires attend an in-person orientation in San Francisco. We are committed to an inclusive and diverse team where employees feel comfortable bringing their authentic selves to work. We are passionate about our work and love employees for who they are and what they are passionate about.

We’re always looking for humble, sharp, and creative folks to join the Fastly team. If you think you might be a fit please apply! A fully completed application and resume or CV are required when applying. All job applications must be submitted through our official careers site at www.fastly.com/about/careers.

Key Skills/Competency

• Platform Engineering
• Distributed Systems
• Cloud Infrastructure
• Kubernetes
• CI/CD
• Observability
• Security Automation
• System Design
• Technical Leadership
• Developer Experience