Principal Software Engineer

Overview

As Principal Software Engineer, you will provide technical leadership for a new Electron- and Chromium-based desktop platform enabling Autodesk web apps. You will define platform architecture, lead core engineering across Electron, Chromium, Windows integration, and automation, and mentor engineers while delivering a secure, maintainable, reusable solution. You’ll work hands-on with design, implementation, debugging, and reviews, shaping the platform to support current and future Autodesk products. This hybrid Sheffield-based role combines architecture ownership with practical delivery and cross-team collaboration.

Pay / Benefits

• comprehensive benefits package
• salary transparency
• hybrid work arrangement (Sheffield)

Responsibilities

• Define and evolve the Electron desktop platform architecture (process boundaries, native capabilities, security controls, runtime configuration, product integration)
• Design, prototype, implement, and review complex functionality across Electron, Chromium, Node.js, TypeScript, Windows APIs, and native components
• Provide technical leadership and mentoring to engineers, establish standards, and review complex changes
• Coordinate with product and platform teams for security, identity, software distribution, telemetry, crash reporting, graphics, and other shared capabilities
• Partner with quality, release engineering to define release gates, runtime upgrades, observability, and production readiness
• Own the platform’s overall technical architecture and ensure clear reusable vs product-specific boundaries
• Define secure communication patterns between hosted apps and desktop functionality (isolation, IPC, native API exposure, navigation, trust)
• Strategy for Electron/Chromium upgrades, configurations, runtime features, and security updates
• Minimize customization to reduce maintenance burden while staying aligned with upstream capabilities
• Lead design of Windows capabilities (lifecycle, hardware info, GPU preference, protocol handling, OS integration, deployment)
• Define stable APIs for Autodesk web apps to consume desktop capabilities without forks
• Collaborate with P3 to translate platform objectives into designs, plans, and incremental deliverables
• Provide guidance to P2 engineer on Electron, Chromium, Node.js, Windows, debugging, and secure design
• Work with SDET and CI/CD/Release to ensure testability, buildability, reproducibility, diagnosability, and automation
• Define build, packaging, signing, release promotion, rollback, and runtime qualification requirements
• Collaborate with security specialists on threat modeling and secure best practices for privileged desktop functionality
• Coordinate with graphics/Rendering teams on memory, GPU, and runtime interfaces while keeping implementation with owning teams
• Lead evaluation of new Electron/Chromium releases and Windows platform changes
• Diagnose difficult issues across Electron, Chromium, Node.js, Windows, lifecycle, memory, security, and hosted apps
• Create and review architecture decisions, designs, runbooks, and engineering standards
• Identify architectural risks, debt, reliabilities, and simplification opportunities
• Ensure alignment with future Autodesk products and Forma expectations
• Help establish onboarding for new Autodesk web applications via clear configuration points
• Participate in hiring to raise technical bar for the team

Key requirements

• Bachelor in Computer Science or related field; equivalent practical experience
• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience
• Strong JavaScript/TypeScript and Node.js experience
• Proven ability to design and deliver complex software systems or platform capabilities
• Experience with Electron and Chromium-based desktop apps or systems-level platforms
• Deep understanding of application architecture, asynchronous systems, security, and lifecycle management
• Experience leading technical design and implementation across multiple engineers
• Ability to solve ambiguous technical problems from investigation to production delivery
• Strong debugging skills across multiple components and layers
• Experience with automated testing, CI, source control, code review, and modern delivery practices
• Experience communicating trade-offs and influencing across teams
• Demonstrated mentoring ability to raise engineering quality via technical leadership

• mentoring
• cross-team collaboration
• clear communication
• Electron architecture (main/renderer/preload, IPC, security)
• Chromium architecture, runtime config, feature flags, tooling
• C++ or native Node.js modules

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