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Principal Software Developer Jobs in California (NOW HIRING)

Principal, Software Engineer We are seeking a talented and passionate Principal, Software Engineer ... Collaborate closely with Product Management, UX/UI, Quality Assurance, and DevOps teams.  

Principal Software Engineer

San Jose, CA · On-site

$143K - $286K/yr

Principal, Software Engineer We are seeking a talented and passionate Principal, Software Engineer ... Collaborate closely with Product Management, UX/UI, Quality Assurance, and DevOps teams.  

Principal Software Engineer

San Diego, CA · On-site

$144K - $195K/yr

Additionally, the Principal Software Engineer will bring deep expertise in one or more technologies including React, TypeScript, Go, Ent, gRPC, Twirp, and/or AWS technologies like EventBridge and ...

Additionally, the Principal Software Engineer will bring deep expertise in one or more technologies including React, TypeScript, Go, Ent, gRPC, Twirp, and/or AWS technologies like EventBridge and ...

PRINCIPAL SOFTWARE ENGINEER Freeform builds AI-native manufacturing systems that unify software, hardware, and physics to produce industrial-scale parts at the speed of human ideation. By treating ...

PRINCIPAL SOFTWARE ENGINEER Freeform builds AI-native manufacturing systems that unify software, hardware, and physics to produce industrial-scale parts at the speed of human ideation. By treating ...

PRINCIPAL SOFTWARE ENGINEER Freeform builds AI-native manufacturing systems that unify software, hardware, and physics to produce industrial-scale parts at the speed of human ideation. By treating ...

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Showing results 1-20

Principal Software Developer information

See California salary details

$93.3K

$139.3K

$183.1K

How much do principal software developer jobs pay per year?

As of Jun 10, 2026, the average yearly pay for principal software developer in California is $139,322.00, according to ZipRecruiter salary data. Most workers in this role earn between $121,900.00 and $153,000.00 per year, depending on experience, location, and employer.

What is the difference between Principal Software Developer vs Senior Software Engineer?

AspectPrincipal Software DeveloperSenior Software Engineer
CredentialsBachelor's or Master’s in Computer Science; extensive experienceBachelor's or Master’s in Computer Science; 5+ years experience
Work EnvironmentLeads technical strategy, mentors teams, influences architectureDevelops features, writes code, mentors junior staff
Industry UsageUsed in large organizations, tech companies, and enterprise settingsCommon across startups, mid-sized, and large companies

The Principal Software Developer typically holds a higher-level role focused on technical leadership, architecture, and strategic planning, whereas the Senior Software Engineer primarily focuses on coding, feature development, and mentoring. Both roles require strong technical skills, but the Principal position involves broader responsibilities and influence within the organization.

How does a Principal Software Developer typically balance hands-on coding with leadership and mentorship responsibilities?

As a Principal Software Developer, you’ll often split your time between writing high-impact code and guiding technical direction for the team. While you remain involved in architecting and developing complex features, a significant portion of your role will also involve mentoring less-experienced developers, leading code reviews, and fostering best practices. You’ll collaborate closely with cross-functional teams to align technical solutions with business goals, and you’re expected to influence the overall engineering culture. This balance requires strong time management skills and a passion for both technical excellence and team development.

What does a Principal Software Developer do?

A Principal Software Developer is a senior-level engineer responsible for leading complex software projects, setting technical direction, and mentoring other developers. They design and architect software solutions, ensure best coding practices, and collaborate with stakeholders to align technical strategy with business goals. Principal Software Developers often influence company-wide technology decisions and help solve the most challenging engineering problems. Their role typically combines hands-on coding with leadership and strategic planning.

What are the key skills and qualifications needed to thrive as a Principal Software Developer, and why are they important?

To thrive as a Principal Software Developer, you need advanced expertise in software engineering, architecture design, and problem-solving, typically backed by a degree in computer science or a related field and extensive industry experience. Mastery of programming languages (such as Java, Python, or C#), software development frameworks, cloud platforms, and familiarity with tools like Git, Docker, and CI/CD systems is critical. Leadership, effective communication, and mentorship abilities are vital soft skills that set top performers apart in this role. These competencies ensure scalable solutions, effective project delivery, and the growth of high-performing development teams.
What are popular job titles related to Principal Software Developer jobs in California? For Principal Software Developer jobs in California, the most frequently searched job titles are:
What job categories do people searching Principal Software Developer jobs in California look for? The top searched job categories for Principal Software Developer jobs in California are:
Infographic showing various Principal Software Developer job openings in California as of June 2026, with employment types broken down into 1% Internship, 66% Full Time, 28% Part Time, 1% Temporary, and 4% Contract. Highlights an 93% Physical, 3% Hybrid, and 4% Remote job distribution, with an average salary of $139,322 per year, or $67 per hour.
Senior Principal Software Developer

Senior Principal Software Developer

Oracle Corporation

Santa Clara, CA • On-site

Full-time

Medical, Dental, Vision, Life, Retirement, PTO

Posted 25 days ago


Oracle rating

8.7

Company rating: 8.7 out of 10

Based on 134 frontline employees who took The Breakroom Quiz

39th of 188 rated software companies


Job description

Job Description

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) delivers mission-critical applications for top tier enterprises around the world. Our cloud offers unmatched hyper-scale, multi-tenant services deployed in more than 50 regions worldwide. OCI is expanding its mission beyond the traditional boundaries of public cloud to include dedicated, hybrid and multi cloud, edge computing, and more.
As are part of Technical Strategy Oversight team (TSO) within OCI, our mission is to maximize customer choice and transparency while delivering high-value cloud solutions. We are at the strategic center of OCI's most ambitious projects-architecting and delivering next-generation platforms and frameworks to empower developers and support groundbreaking cloud services.

What You'll Be Building and Leading

  • End-to-End Solutions: Provide technical leadership in designing, architecting, and delivering greenfield cloud services and platforms from inception to production at global scale.
  • Foundational Frameworks: Spearhead the engineering of new container runtimes and distributed frameworks to power OCI's highest-availability and most demanding workloads.
  • Performance at Scale: Direct the development of bleeding-edge, high-performance persistent storage and networking solutions, setting new benchmarks for cloud infrastructure.
  • Strategic Innovation: Define standards and drive adoption of core data-plane components and developer tools across OCI, enabling organizational performance leaps.

Why Join Us?

  • Industry Impact: Shape the direction and standards of the global public cloud by leading initiatives with large-scale customer and organizational impact.
  • Personal Growth: Accelerate your career at the intersection of technical and strategic leadership, with opportunities to influence OCI's top priorities and outcomes.
  • Collaborative Leadership: Partner with and mentor diverse, world-class engineering teams while enjoying autonomy and strong executive support.
  • Culture of Excellence: Help foster an inclusive, high-performance workplace where innovators of all backgrounds can thrive, drive change, and deliver excellence.

Responsibilities 

We're seeking visionary technical leaders who excel at defining and executing at-scale system and data-plane architectures in the public cloud. As a recognized expert, you will deliver complex solutions for one of the two new OCI services:

  • Key value store is a fully managed, serverless NoSQL database service. It delivers fast and predictable performance with seamless scalability, automatically handling infrastructure management, capacity provisioning, security, and backups. It is designed to support high-volume, real-time workloads, consistently providing single-digit millisecond latency for both reads and writes, regardless of scale.
  • A journaling service that reliably and efficiently records sequential, immutable logs (journal entries) of operations or transactions, with architecture designed to support increases in workload (scalability), while consistently delivering very fast response times for both recording and retrieving journal entries (low latency).

You will mentor senior engineers, drive strategy, and be responsible for cross-team alignment and delivery of mission-critical services. You are respected for providing technical direction, simplifying complexity, improving operational outcomes, and raising the engineering bar throughout the organization. Your influence reaches across product, engineering, and operational teams, and you routinely collaborate with executive leadership to set and realize long-term strategy.

With your superb technical, research and analytical capabilities and demonstrated ability to get the right things done quickly and effectively to delight our customers, you will envision, collaborate with executives for investment and drive the software design and development for new major data-plane components of Oracle's Cloud Infrastructure. You will define the foundations for the next generation of OCI data-planes, making deep architectural changes calls as an outstanding builder and technical leader with an established industry track record of success in leading large cloud scale projects.

You will take an active role in the definition and evolution of standard practices and procedures. You will perform software development tasks associated with the developing, designing and debugging of software applications or operating systems. You will be able to work with Engineering Managers and TPMs, and providing direct guidance to junior team members. You can go from high level system design, writing architectural documentation and driving engineering peer reviews to hands-on prototyping, code reviews and project bootstrapping. You can balance speed and quality with iteration and incremental improvements. You've made life easier for other developers and have motivated your teams to make both process and service improvements with your ability to automate and instrument your service. You understand operational excellence and how to instill a culture of high quality and customer focus.

Only Oracle brings together the data, infrastructure, applications, and expertise to power everything from industry innovations to life-saving care. And with AI embedded across our products and services, we help customers turn that promise into a better future for all. Discover your potential at a company leading the way in AI and cloud solutions that impact billions of lives.

True innovation starts when everyone is empowered to contribute. That's why we're committed to growing a workforce that promotes opportunities for all with competitive benefits that support our people with flexible medical, life insurance, and retirement options. We also encourage employees to give back to their communities through our volunteer programs.

We're committed to including people with disabilities at all stages of the employment process. If you require accessibility assistance or accommodation for a disability at any point, let us know by emailing accommodation-request_mb@oracle.com or by calling 1-888-404-2494 in the United States.

Oracle is an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability and protected veterans' status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Oracle will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records pursuant to applicable law.

Disclaimer:
Certain US customer or client-facing roles may be required to comply with applicable requirements, such as immunization and occupational health mandates.
Range and benefit information provided in this posting are specific to the stated locations only
US: Hiring Range in USD from: $96,800 to $251,600 per annum. May be eligible for bonus, equity, and compensation deferral.
Oracle maintains broad salary ranges for its roles in order to account for variations in knowledge, skills, experience, market conditions and locations, as well as reflect Oracle's differing products, industries and lines of business.
Candidates are typically placed into the range based on the preceding factors as well as internal peer equity.
Oracle US offers a comprehensive benefits package which includes the following:
1. Medical, dental, and vision insurance, including expert medical opinion
2. Short term disability and long term disability
3. Life insurance and AD&D
4. Supplemental life insurance (Employee/Spouse/Child)
5. Health care and dependent care Flexible Spending Accounts
6. Pre-tax commuter and parking benefits
7. 401(k) Savings and Investment Plan with company match
8. Paid time off: Flexible Vacation is provided to all eligible employees assigned to a salaried (non-overtime eligible) position. Accrued Vacation is provided to all other employees eligible for vacation benefits. For employees working at least 35 hours per week, the vacation accrual rate is 13 days annually for the first three years of employment and 18 days annually for subsequent years of employment. Vacation accrual is prorated for employees working between 20 and 34 hours per week. Employees working fewer than 20 hours per week are not eligible for vacation.
9. 11 paid holidays
10. Paid sick leave: 72 hours of paid sick leave upon date of hire. Refreshes each calendar year. Unused balance will carry over each year up to a maximum cap of 112 hours.
11. Paid parental leave
12. Adoption assistance
13. Employee Stock Purchase Plan
14. Financial planning and group legal
15. Voluntary benefits including auto, homeowner and pet insurance
The role will generally accept applications for at least three calendar days from the posting date or as long as the job remains posted.

Career Level - IC5


  • BS, MS, or PhD in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field (or equivalent experience).
  • More than 10 years' of experience delivering distributed, mission-critical cloud services at large scale.
  • Strong experience of C/C++ and open to work on Rust 
  • Strong experience with high-concurrency systems.
  • Experience in low-level and performance-critical system level design and service development. 
  • Working experience with some of the following technologies: Filesystem Journalling, High performance distributed storage, Write-Ahead Logging (WAL), Raft, Paxos, or Multi-Paxos for distributed consistency.
  • Strong team player with outstanding communication, organization, and interpersonal skills. 
  • Comfortable with complex, swiftly evolving software development environments. 
  • Ability to learn new technologies quickly and drive, follow, evangelize, and improve cross-team processes. 
  • Expert knowledge of cloud infrastructure concepts and technologies. 
  • Experience working with geographically distributed teams. 
  • Significant work experience in startups or fast-paced enterprise technology development environments
  • Demonstrates strong mentorship abilities, effectively guiding and developing teams while aligning engineers with shared objectives.

What Oracle employees say

Pay

Benefits

Hours and flexibility

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About Oracle

Sourced by ZipRecruiter

An Oracle career can span industries, roles, Countries and cultures, giving you the opportunity to flourish in new roles and innovate, while blending work life in. Oracle has thrived through 40+ years of change by innovating and operating with integrity while delivering for the top companies in almost every industry. In order to nurture the talent that makes this happen, we are committed to an inclusive culture that celebrates and values diverse insights and perspectives, a workforce that inspires thought leadership and innovation. Oracle offers a highly competitive suite of Employee Benefits designed on the principles of parity, consistency, and affordability. The overall package includes certain core elements such as Medical, Life Insurance, access to Retirement Planning, and much more. We also encourage our employees to engage in the culture of giving back to the communities where we live and do business. At Oracle, we believe that innovation starts with diversity and inclusion and to create the future we need talent from various backgrounds, perspectives, and abilities. We ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to successfully participate in the job application, interview process, and in potential roles. to perform crucial job functions. That's why we're committed to creating a workforce where all individuals can do their best work. It's when everyone's voice is heard and valued that we're inspired to go beyond what's been done before.

Industry

It services

Company size

10,000+ Employees

Headquarters location

Redwood City, CA, US

Year founded

1977

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