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Distinguished Engineer Jobs in Seattle, WA (NOW HIRING)

NetApp

Distinguished Engineer

Bellevue, WA

Job Summary We are looking for a Distinguished Engineer who will have the opportunity to work on building and scaling architecture and experience across multiple cloud environments, leveraging open ...

Walmart

Distinguished, Software Engineer

Bellevue, WA

$156K - $312K/yr

Distinguished Engineer - Marketplace, Category Strategic Initiatives (CSI) We are seeking a talented and passionate Distinguished Engineer to join our team. In this role, you will serve as a ...

Nvidia

Distinguished Engineer - Dynamo

Seattle, WA

As a Distinguished Engineer, you will be a key technical leader, helping drive technology and product direction, provide deep technical expertise and guidance to the team and NVIDIA at large, and ...

NVIDIA

Distinguished Engineer - Dynamo

Seattle, WA · On-site

NVIDIA is a leading technology company focused on AI and deep learning, currently seeking a distinguished-level Engineer to join the Dynamo engineering team. In this role, you will provide technical ...

Geico

Distinguished Engineer, Policy Platform

Seattle, WA · On-site

$150K - $300K/yr

At GEICO, the Policy Engineering teams are on a mission to redefine how insurance policies are built, managed, and evolved.We'redesigning world-class services that are modular, resilient, and ready ...

GEICO

Staff Engineer

Seattle, WA · On-site

Position Description Our Staff Engineer works with our Distinguished Engineer and Sr. Engineers to innovate and build new systems, improve, and enhance existing systems and identify new opportunities ...

Geico

Staff Engineer

Seattle, WA

Position Description Our Staff Engineer works with our Distinguished Engineer and Sr. Engineers to innovate and build new systems, improve, and enhance existing systems and identify new opportunities ...

Geico

Staff Network Engineer

Seattle, WA · Hybrid

Position Description Our Staff Engineer works with our Distinguished Engineer and Sr. Engineers to innovate and build new systems, improve, and enhance existing systems as well as identify new ...

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All JobsDistinguished Engineer JobsDistinguished Engineer Jobs in Seattle, WA

Distinguished Engineer information

See Seattle, WA salary details

$35.3K

$109K

$145.1K

How much do distinguished engineer jobs pay per year?

As of Jun 14, 2026, the average yearly pay for distinguished engineer in Seattle, WA is $109,017.00, according to ZipRecruiter salary data. Most workers in this role earn between $92,200.00 and $132,000.00 per year, depending on experience, location, and employer.

What are the key skills and qualifications needed to thrive in the Distinguished Engineer position, and why are they important?

To thrive as a Distinguished Engineer, you need extensive expertise in software architecture, system design, and deep technical problem-solving, often supported by an advanced degree and a robust track record in engineering leadership roles. Mastery of programming languages, architectural frameworks, cloud platforms, and experience with industry-standard tools such as CI/CD pipelines is typical, along with relevant certifications like AWS Certified Solutions Architect or Google Cloud Professional Engineer. Exceptional communication, mentorship, and strategic thinking skills set candidates apart by fostering innovation and guiding teams towards effective solutions. These skills and qualities are crucial for driving large-scale technical initiatives, shaping company-wide technology strategies, and mentoring engineering talent.

What is a Distinguished Engineer job?

A Distinguished Engineer is a senior-level technical expert recognized for their deep expertise, leadership, and impact on engineering and innovation. They drive complex technical strategies, mentor engineers, and influence the company's technology direction. Unlike managerial roles, they focus on solving high-impact technical challenges and setting industry standards.

What engineer makes $500,000 a year?

Highly experienced senior engineers, such as Distinguished Engineers or Principal Engineers in technology companies, can earn $500,000 or more annually, especially when including bonuses, stock options, and other compensation. These roles typically require advanced technical skills, leadership abilities, and significant industry experience.

What jobs make $1,000,000 per year?

In the context of a Distinguished Engineer, roles at the senior technical leadership level in large technology companies can reach or exceed $1,000,000 annually, including base salary, bonuses, and stock options. These positions typically require advanced technical skills, extensive experience, and often involve strategic decision-making and innovation. Compensation varies widely based on company size, location, and individual performance.

What are typical career advancement opportunities for a Distinguished Engineer?

As a Distinguished Engineer, you have the opportunity to influence major technical decisions and take on leadership roles in shaping company technology strategy. While this position is already among the highest technical tracks, you may advance further to roles like Chief Architect or Principal Technical Fellow, or choose to expand your impact by moving into organizational leadership or executive positions. Distinguished Engineers often lead cross-functional initiatives, mentor other engineers, and represent the company in industry forums or technical communities. This role offers a blend of deep technical contribution and broad organizational influence, enabling career growth along both technical and leadership paths.

What does a Distinguished Engineer do?

A Distinguished Engineer is a senior technical role responsible for leading complex projects, setting technical strategy, and driving innovation within an organization. They often mentor other engineers, contribute to technical standards, and work on high-impact initiatives using advanced skills and industry best practices.

What engineers make 300,000 a year?

Senior and distinguished engineers in fields such as software, systems, or hardware engineering can earn $300,000 or more annually, especially with extensive experience, advanced skills, and leadership responsibilities. Compensation often includes base salary, bonuses, and stock options, particularly in large tech companies or startups with high growth potential.
What are popular job titles related to Distinguished Engineer jobs in Seattle, WA? For Distinguished Engineer jobs in Seattle, WA, the most frequently searched job titles are:
What job categories do people searching Distinguished Engineer jobs in Seattle, WA look for? The top searched job categories for Distinguished Engineer jobs in Seattle, WA are:
Distinguished Engineer jobs near you
Distinguished Engineer

Distinguished Engineer

NetApp

Bellevue, WA

Other

Medical, Life, Retirement, PTO

Posted 24 days ago

Job description

Job Summary

We are looking for a Distinguished Engineer who will have the opportunity to work on building and scaling architecture and experience across multiple cloud environments, leveraging open-source technologies and delivering platform-as-a-service solutions that power mission-critical workloads.

This is a technical leadership role that requires close collaboration with other technical leaders and software engineers to drive innovation, engineering excellence, and the design of scalable architectures. The role will focus on solving the most complex engineering challenges in areas such as service fundamentals-availability, reliability, performance, and scalability-while also improving developer velocity through modern CI/CD practices, canary deployments, and real-user telemetry-based testing. A key responsibility will be designing fault-tolerant, highly available, and low-latency control plane architectures for cloud-native services. Distinguished Engineers are hands-on practitioners, not consultants. To earn the respect of the engineering community and keep their skills sharp, it is expected that this role will involve coding and serving as a role model for technical excellence. At least forty percent of the time will be devoted to producing tangible artifacts such as vision statements, design documents, and source code.

Prior experience as a Principal or Senior Principal engineer working on high-scale, geo-distributed applications or services built on major cloud providers is highly preferred. Experience with open-source technologies such as Apache Cassandra, Kafka, PostgreSQL, or similar distributed systems is strongly valued. Familiarity with storage systems is preferred but not mandatory.

Key Responsibilities
  • Lead the definition, design, architecture quality, implementation, and delivery of the most advanced, most difficult, most cross-cutting, and/or most ambiguous challenges spanning across the Cloud business unit.
  • Operate with independence and act as force multipliers to the benefit of the company, delivering on its most complex challenges.
  • Foster a culture of learning and experimentation, and advocate for best engineering, QA, and Operational practices for the entire business unit.
  • Serve as a technical leader on demanding, cross-functional engineering projects. The expectation will be to functionally decompose complex problems into simple, straightforward solutions and fully understand system interdependencies and limitation.
  • Understand not just the technical and product capabilities but the nuances of the NetApp cloud business and help to understand and balance conflicting stakeholder objectives, while simultaneously building trust and demonstrating empathy with customers' needs.
  • Architect and build modern CD/CI infrastructure which works all the time for several hundred developers working on multitude of interconnected software deployment pipelines.
  • Architect and design modern, cloud native QA framework and components.
  • Assist in the career development of others, actively coach and mentor other senior and principal engineers on advanced technical issues.
  • Contribute to building intellectual property through patents.
Job Requirements
  • Minimum of 10+ years of experience as software engineer.
  • 4+ years hands-on experience as a senior Principal Engineer leading multiple software engineering teams.
  • Expert knowledge in performance, scalability, enterprise system architecture, and engineering best practices.
  • Expert in designing and building large-scale systems in a multi-tiered, distributed environment (Service Oriented Architecture).
  • Extensive experience building fault tolerant and high scale distributed architecture on one of the major cloud providers.
  • Extensive experience of cloud native application or services operations, data management, migration, and security.
  • Excellent communication and writing skills, with the ability to effectively engage with customers, stakeholders, and the engineering community.
  • Proactive and self-driven, with the ability to work independently and take ownership of initiatives.
  • Experience operating and troubleshooting reliable, scalable software systems.
  • Experience building fully automated testing frameworks from code check-in to deployment.
  • Proficient in at least one modern programming language such as Rust, GoLang or Java.
  • Prior experience building services or applications in cloud-native architectures using either AWS, Azure, or Google cloud.
  • Experience with monitoring frameworks (such as CloudWatch, Datadog, Grafana, Elastic or similar).
  • Decent understanding of storage architectures, design patterns, and best practices. Preferred will be experience with storage technologies such as RAID, Volumes, Replication solutions.
  • Assist in the career development of others, actively coach and mentor other senior and principal engineers on advanced technical issues.
  • Contribute to building intellectual property through patents.
Education

Bachelor's degree in computer science or a related field or equivalent experience.

Compensation:
The target salary range for this position is $290,000-350,000. The salary offered will be determined by the candidate's location, qualifications, experience, and education and may be outside of this range. Final compensation packages are competitive and in line with industry standards, reflecting a variety of factors, and include a comprehensive benefits package. This may cover Health Insurance, Life Insurance, Retirement or Pension Plans, Paid Time Off (PTO), various Leave options, Performance-Based Incentives, employee stock purchase plan, and/or restricted stocks (RSU's), with all offerings subject to regional variations and governed by local laws, regulations, and company policies. Benefits may vary by country and region, and further details will be provided as part of the recruitment process.   

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