Principal Software Engineer- Chennai

Job Description - Tech Lead

Summary

Senior-level C#/.NET engineer with formal technical ownership of a team or program area accountable for architecture, delivery quality, and technical direction, while staying hands-on. This role bridges technical excellence and leadership, requiring both deep engineering expertise and the ability to influence across organizational boundaries.

What You'll Do

Technical Architecture & Strategy

• Own end-to-end technical architecture, design decisions, and roadmap for assigned team/program area (C#/.NET services, integrations, and related systems)
• Translate business and product requirements into feasible technical plans with clear sequencing and resource estimation
• Make final architectural decisions; resolve design tradeoffs with clear rationale and stakeholder alignment
• Identify and resolve cross-team technical dependencies proactively

Engineering Excellence & Quality

• Establish and enforce coding standards, best practices, and architectural patterns across the team
• Drive tech debt strategy and execution (e.g., .NET version upgrades, dependency management, legacy system modernization)
• Champion observability, monitoring, and alerting practices; ensure production systems are instrumented for visibility
• Own quality metrics and continuous improvement initiatives (code review processes, testing standards, deployment reliability)

Leadership & Mentorship

• Coach and mentor senior engineers on system design, architectural thinking, and technical leadership skills
• Partner with Engineering Manager on performance evaluations, growth conversations, and career development planning
• Represent the team in cross-functional forums, leadership meetings, and technical design reviews
• Communicate technical risks, blockers, and escalations clearly to stakeholders and leadership

Hands-On Contribution

• Remain actively engaged in C#/.NET development at a reduced but meaningful level (estimated 30-40% coding time)
• Participate in code reviews, design reviews, and architectural discussions
• Prototype solutions for complex or novel problems; unblock the team on critical technical challenges
• Model engineering excellence through personal work quality and technical decision-making

What You'll Need

Required

• 8+ years of software engineering experience, with majority in C#/.NET and demonstrated technical leadership
• Deep expertise in the .NET ecosystem: ASP.NET Core (MVC, Web API, middleware), Entity Framework Core, Azure DevOps pipelines, and HAL deployment infrastructure
• Proven track record of owning a system or program area end-to-end (design, implementation, production support, and evolution)
• Strong architectural thinking — ability to evaluate tradeoffs between performance, scalability, maintainability, and time-to-market
• Excellent stakeholder communication — translates complex technical concepts for non-technical leaders and influences decisions through clear reasoning

Preferred

• Experience with cloud-native architecture and Azure services
• Familiarity with CI/CD best practices and deployment automation
• Track record of leading technical initiatives across multiple teams
• Experience mentoring engineers into technical leadership roles
• Knowledge of observability tools and practices (logging, tracing, metrics)

“We are committed to providing a fair and inclusive workplace for all team members and applicants. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to sex, religion, caste, disability, or gender identity, consistent with applicable Indian law, including the Constitution of India, the Code on Wages, 2019, the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, and the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019. We welcome applications from persons with disabilities and from all sections of society.”