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Principal Software Engineering Manager Jobs in Massachusetts

Principal Software Engineer-SRE

Boston, MA ยท On-site

$150 - $200/hr

Principal Software Engineer (SRE)-Onshape Hybrid-Boston, MA About the Role Onshape's Site ... Expert understanding of incident management, service reliability, and performance engineering

Principal Software Engineer-SRE

Boston, MA ยท On-site

$150 - $200/hr

Principal Software Engineer (SRE)-Onshape Hybrid-Boston, MA About the Role Onshape's Site ... Expert understanding of incident management, service reliability, and performance engineering

Principal Software Engineer-SRE

Boston, MA ยท On-site

$146K - $196K/yr

Principal Software Engineer (SRE) - Onshape Hybrid-Boston, MA About the Role Onshape' s Site ... Expert understanding of incident management, service reliability, and performance engineering

Software Engineering Manager

Boston, MA ยท Remote

$150K - $190K/yr

Software Engineering Manager Remote, Full-Time About the Team/Role WEX FSM (formerly Payzerware), is an end-to-end Field Service Management platform that helps contractors run their business, grow ...

Software Engineering Manager

Boston, MA ยท Remote

$150K - $190K/yr

Software Engineering Manager Remote, Full-Time About the Team/Role WEX FSM (formerly Payzerware), is an end-to-end Field Service Management platform that helps contractors run their business, grow ...

Software Engineering Manager

Needham, MA ยท On-site

$117K - $323K/yr

We are searching for a forward thinking Software Engineering Manager to lead the engineers building the future of capital markets infrastructure. Headquartered in Needham, Massachusetts, HPR is ...

Software Engineering Manager

Burlington, MA ยท On-site

$150 - $200/hr

Software Engineering Manager Azara Healthcare is seeking a software engineering manager with a high attention to detail and a passion for creating high performing applications. You will manage a team ...

Principal Software Engineer

Boston, MA

$146K - $196K/yr

Strong project management skills * Ignition and deviseWISE experience * Azure, AWS, Docker ... Strong understanding of software engineering principles, coding languages, and development tools

Principal Software Engineer

Boston, MA ยท On-site

$146K - $196K/yr

Strong project management skills * Ignition and deviseWISE experience * Azure, AWS, Docker ... Strong understanding of software engineering principles, coding languages, and development tools

Principal Software Engineer

Boston, MA ยท On-site

$152K - $228K/yr

As a Principal Software Engineer, you will work across application code and infrastructure to ... Full-Stack Engineering: Work across both application code and infrastructure, contributing to ...

Software Engineering Manager

Needham, MA ยท On-site

$117K - $323K/yr

We are searching for a forward thinking Software Engineering Manager to lead the engineers building the future of capital markets infrastructure. Headquartered in Needham, Massachusetts, HPR is ...

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Showing results 1-20

Principal Software Engineering Manager information

What is a principal software engineering manager?

A Principal Software Engineering Manager is a senior leadership role responsible for overseeing multiple engineering teams, setting technical direction, and ensuring the successful delivery of complex software projects. They combine deep technical expertise with strong leadership skills to mentor engineers, drive architectural decisions, and collaborate with stakeholders across the organization. This role often involves strategic planning, talent development, and fostering a culture of innovation and continuous improvement within the engineering department.

What are the key skills and qualifications needed to thrive as a principal software engineering manager?

To thrive as a Principal Software Engineering Manager, you need deep expertise in software development, strong architectural knowledge, and significant leadership experience, often supported by a relevant degree and years of technical management. Familiarity with cloud platforms (such as Azure or AWS), advanced programming languages, and project management tools (like Jira or Azure DevOps) is typically required. Outstanding communication, team-building, and strategic thinking skills set top performers apart in this role. These skills ensure effective technical direction, successful project delivery, and cohesive, high-performing engineering teams.

How does a principal software engineering manager typically balance technical leadership with people management responsibilities?

A Principal Software Engineering Manager often balances technical leadership and people management by dedicating time to both architectural decision-making and team development. This involves participating in high-level design discussions, guiding technical strategy, and ensuring best practices are followed, while also conducting regular one-on-ones, mentoring engineers, and supporting professional growth. Effective delegation, clear communication, and collaboration with cross-functional teams are key to managing this dual scope. Many find that prioritizing transparency and empowering team leads helps maintain this balance and drive both project and people success.

What is the difference between Principal Software Engineering Manager vs Software Development Manager?

AspectPrincipal Software Engineering ManagerSoftware Development Manager
ResponsibilitiesOversees multiple teams, sets technical strategy, influences product architectureManages a single development team, focuses on project delivery and team performance
Required CredentialsTypically requires extensive software engineering experience, leadership skills, often a bachelor's or master's degree in CS or related fieldUsually requires experience in software development and team management, with similar educational background
Work EnvironmentStrategic, cross-team collaboration, high-level decision makingOperational, project-focused, team management
Industry UsageCommon in large tech companies and organizations with multiple product linesWidely used across various companies for team-level management

The main difference between a Principal Software Engineering Manager and a Software Development Manager lies in scope and strategic influence. The Principal role involves overseeing multiple teams and shaping technical direction, while the Software Development Manager focuses on managing a single team and project execution.

What cities in Massachusetts are hiring for Principal Software Engineering Manager jobs?

Cities in Massachusetts with the most Principal Software Engineering Manager job openings:

Infographic showing various Principal Software Engineering Manager job openings in Massachusetts as of August 2026, with employment types broken down into 83% Full Time, 14% Part Time, 1% Temporary, and 2% Contract. Highlights an 84% Physical, 3% Hybrid, and 13% Remote job distribution.

Senior Principal Software Engineer

Waltham, MA โ€ข On-site

Rocket Software, Inc.
IT Servicesย โ€ขย 1 - 5K employees

$143K - $193K/yr

Full-time

Medical, Life, Retirement, PTO

Re-posted 26 days ago


Job description

It's fun to work in a company where people truly BELIEVE in what they're doing!
Job Description Summary:
The Infrastructure Modernization business unit is seeking a Senior Principal Software Engineer to serve as a visionary and hands-on technical leader for our Workload Automation solutions.
The Infrastructure Modernization business unit is seeking a Senior Principal Software Engineer to serve as a visionary and hands-on technical leader for our Workload Automation solutions. These solutions are foundational to our customers' ability to automate business critical processes/workflows, ensure predictable batch workload execution, and modernize software engineering, development, and deployment processes. This responsibility requires deep expertise in automation technologies and practices, runbook operational responsibilities, and modern DevOps pipeline strategies. In this role, this person will be a recognized thought leader, driving the evolution of our Automation product lines to meet enterprise mainframe and hybrid cloud environment. You will collaborate with customers, engineering teams, sales, and product management teams to ensure our offerings deliver robust protection, highly reliable, performant, operationally simple, and highly secure.
Key modernization initiatives will include:
  • Embedding generative and predictive AI to enhance predictable operational outcomes, build workflow processes, and effectively integrate automation into enterprises. In short, modernize our approach to pan-enterprise automation.
  • Architecting scalable, resilient automation platforms that support dynamic workloads
  • Developing modern, secure APIs to improve integration with enterprise batch, DevOps, business process workflow ecosystems and observability platforms.
  • Streamlining deployment and configuration compatible with modern deployment containerization and provisioning technologies.
  • Deliver solutions that automate workflows seamlessly across the entire hybrid enterprise computing stack

Key Role Responsibilities
  • Create and maintain the automation solution architecture that demonstrates key capabilities and value that customers require today and may well require tomorrow
  • Direct requirements and backlog maintenance to ensure alignment with key vision and product direction.
  • Evaluates and recommend key function and value streams necessary to address future vision-based use cases that will allow us to achieve:
  • Competitive differentiation
  • Market leading (e.g. Gartner Magic Quadrant)
  • Full function vs. niche alignment based on strategy dictates
  • Build vs. Buy recommendations
  • Lead and advise on technical debt assessment and resolution
  • Explore and advocate for automation integration opportunities across Rocket and our Partner ecosystems.

Minimum Qualifications
  • 10+ years of professional software engineering/technical product experience, including at least 5 years in a principal or senior technical leadership role.
  • Deep knowledge of automation technologies, workload orchestration, and DevOps practices.
  • Proven experience architecting scalable, resilient platforms for hybrid cloud and mainframe environments.
  • Strong proficiency in z Assembler (HLASM), system diagnostics, and the z/OS architecture as well as modern programming languages (e.g., Java, Python, Go, or similar) and API design.
  • Hands-on experience with CI/CD pipelines as deployed to support modern mainframe software product development
  • Familiarity with observability platforms, security best practices, and performance optimization.
  • Demonstrated ability to define technical vision and roadmap for enterprise-scale solutions.
  • Experience acting as a player-coach, mentoring global engineering teams while contributing technically.
  • Strong collaboration skills with cross-functional teams (Product Management, Sales, Customer Engineering).
  • Expertise in enterprise workload automation, batch processing, and integration with business process workflows.
  • Understanding of AI/ML integration for predictive and generative automation use cases.
  • Excellent communication and presentation skills for engaging with customers and executive stakeholders.
  • Ability to work in a global, distributed development environment.
  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related field

#LI-Remote
Annual salary range for this position is between $143,000.00 - $193,050.00 gross before taxes.
What Rocket Software can offer you in USA:
  • Unlimited Vacation Time as well as paid holidays and sick time
  • Health and Wellness coverage options for Rocketeers and dependents
  • Life and disability coverage
  • Fidelity 401(k) and Roth Retirement Savings with matching contributions
  • Monthly student debt benefit program
  • Tuition Reimbursement and Certificate Reimbursement Program opportunities
  • Leadership and skills training opportunities

EOE M/F/Vet/Disability. Rocket Software Inc. is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status. Rocket Software Inc. is also committed to compliance with all fair employment practices regarding citizenship and immigration status.
At Rocket Software, we believe AI is a critical enabler of innovation and productivity. All Rocketeers are expected to actively leverage AI-powered tools and technologies, where appropriate, to enhance efficiency, improve decision-making, and deliver greater impact in their roles. Embracing continuous learning and the responsible use of AI is an essential part of how we work.
Rocket is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodation to individuals with physical and mental disabilities. If you need special assistance or an accommodation while seeking employment, please call: 781-577-4321 or send an email to people@rocketsoftware.com. We will make a determination on your request for reasonable accommodation on a case-by-case basis.
As part of our commitment to a safe and trustworthy workplace, we include background and reference checks in our hiring process.
It is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability.
If you like wild growth and working with happy, enthusiastic over-achievers, you'll enjoy your career with us!

Rocket Software logo

About Rocket Software

Sourced by ZipRecruiter

Thousands of companies around the world depend on Rocket to solve their most challenging business problems by helping them run their critical infrastructure, business processes, and data, as well as extending the value of these assets to take advantage of cloud and mobile computing, advanced analytics, and other future innovations. From the clothes we wear to the cars we drive, Rocket solutions power the back-end systems that thousands of brands interact with every day. At Rocket, software has always been about people--not just ones and zeroes. We're people solving problems for other people, and we strive to treat our customers, partners, and fellow Rocketeers with humanity.

Industry

It services

Company size

1,001 - 5,000 Employees

Headquarters location

Waltham, MA, US

Year founded

1990

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