Software Systems Principal Engineer

Software Systems Principal Engineer

Our Software Systems Engineering team at Dell Technologies ensures that our customers have the software systems they need to adapt to the changing world. Working at the cutting edge, we design and deliver software systems modifications as well as enhancements of new products. We oversee product development at all stages: planning, designing, developing and testing operating systems, compilers, routers, utilities, databases, embedded management and control devices, plus internet-related tools.  

Join us to do the best work of your career and make a profound social impact as a Software Systems Principal Engineer on our ISG KaaS team in Durham, North Carolina.  

What you’ll achieve: 

Our organization plays a fundamental role in delivering IaaS/PAAS/SAAS for the ISG Development teams.  We are seeking a highly skilled Software Systems Principal Engineer to join our KaaS (Kubernetes as a Service) team. You will be responsible for designing, building, and operating a large-scale enterprise container platform that manages multiple OpenShift clusters across multiple environments (Development, Staging, Production, Disaster Recovery) spread in multiple geographical data center sites using a fully GitOps-driven approach. 

Our platform follows Hub-and-Spoke architecture powered by Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management (ACM), ArgoCD, and a set of in-house developed reusable infrastructure components. You will own the full Day 0 / Day 1 / Day 2 cluster lifecycle -- from initial vSphere provisioning and GitOps bootstrap through to continuous operations, upgrades, and decommissioning -- ensuring that hundreds of engineering teams can ship software safely and efficiently on KaaS Platforms. 

You will: 

• Be responsible for Automating OpenShift cluster creation on VMware vSphere via IPI & OpenShift Hive which is integrated with Hashi vault secret management. Drive Day-2 cluster operations through Git-based changes, ArgoCD sync reconciliation, health monitoring via ACM, and incident response 

• Design, deploy, and operate OpenShift/Kubernetes clusters at enterprise scale across premises at multiple data center sites, including Disaster Recovery site operations 

• Build and maintain Gitops pipelines using Argo CD Application Sets with Kustomize overlays, and Helm charts to deliver consistent cluster configurations across all environments 

• Develop and extend Infrastructure-as-Code artifacts (Helm charts, customize components, ACM Policies) in the platform's reusable components following established component development patterns  

• Implement and manage the full system observability stack including a custom developed logging pipeline (Logging Operator -> Loki Operator -> Loki Instance -> ClusterLogForwarder -> Cluster Observability Operator), Grafana, Prometheus/Thanos with custom PromQL recording rules and alerts, Open Telemetry/Tempo. Deliver "per-tenant observability" using reusable Helm charts (Grafana Loki data source  ClusterLogForwarder per namespace) 

• Operate and improve secrets management (Hashi Corp Vault External Secrets Operator with ClusterSecretStore pattern), certificate management (cert-manager within house developed Dell ECS-API Plugin), and identity/access management (Okta OIDC, RBAC, Gatekeeper) 

• Support tenant onboarding and multi-tenancy through namespace configuration, quota management, tenant-scoped ArgoCD instances, and RBAC policies 

• Manage backup and disaster recovery using Red Hat OADP (OpenShift API for Data Protection) and cross-site storage replication via Dell CSM 

• Collaborate with application teams on workload deployment patterns, storage provisioning (Dell CSM, container storage), networking (MetalLB in BGP and L2 modes, OVN-Kubernetes including hybrid overlay for Windows nodes, NGINX Ingress), and infrastructure node affinity scheduling for critical workloads 

• Contribute to Architectural Decision Records (ADRs) for substantial design changes, participate in daily standups & PR review meetings, and follow rebase-only merging practices 

Essential Requirements: 

• Kubernetes (K8s)/ Red Hat OpenShift - Deep, hands-on expertise with Kubernetes internals and operations. You must be comfortable with core Kubernetes objects. Troubleshooting complex workload issues across namespaces is essential. Familiarity with Kubernetes API internals, admission controllers, resource quota management, and Cluster Version resources for orchestrating upgrades is expected 

• GitOps (ArgoCD / Declarative Configuration) - Strong experience implementing and operating GitOps workflows at scale. You must have hands-on proficiency with ArgoCD -- including Applications, Application Sets, AppProjects, sync waves, health checks, and the app-of-apps pattern. Understanding how Git serves as the single source of truth for cluster state, with automated drift detection and reconciliation, is critical. 

• Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) - Proven experience building and maintaining infrastructure using declarative, version-controlled code. This includes proficiency with Helm, Meta charts, CI/CD for IAC, Policy-as-a-code. Customize components.  

• Observability (Monitoring, Logging, Alerting) - Experience deploying observability stacks via Application Sets with phased rollout strategies to respect dependency ordering 

• Automation & Scripting - Strong scripting and automation skills in Bash and/or Python for building operational tooling, CI/CD pipelines for platform, and custom Kubernetes controllers or operators. Experience with "GitHub Actions" 

Desirable Skills (Preferred) 

• MLOps & Prompt Engineering & AI Integration - Basic understanding of deploying and managing ML workloads on Kubernetes. How to integrate ML pipelines into GitOps-managed cluster environments. Practical experience with "prompt engineering" and AI-powered operations tooling. Familiarity with deploying or integrating MCP servers. Basic understanding of Agentic AI patterns and how to leverage tool-use patterns with Dell Provided LLM's. Ideas on developing agentic workflows.  

• Knowledge of VMware Infrastructure, Basic Networking, and Basic Storage administration.  

Compensation

Dell is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices. The salary range for this position is $161,200-$213,400

Benefits and Perks of working at Dell Technologies

Your life. Your health. Supported by your benefits. You can explore the overall benefits experience that awaits you as a Dell Technologies team member — right now at MyWellatDell.com

Who we are

We believe that each of us has the power to make an impact. That’s why we put our team members at the center of everything we do. If you’re looking for an opportunity to grow your career with some of the best minds and most advanced tech in the industry, we’re looking for you.

Dell Technologies is a unique family of businesses that helps individuals and organizations transform how they work, live and play. Join us to build a future that works for everyone because Progress Takes All of Us.

Application closing date: 31 May 2026

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