{"id":774606,"url":"https://alion.io/job/rocket-software-principal-software-engineer-2","title":"Principal Software Engineer","company":{"id":176188,"name":"Rocket Software","domain":"rocketsoftware.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/rocket-software","size_band":"1001-5000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Workday","truth_index":{"grade":"A","score":99,"open_postings":46,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.043,"repost_share":0.022,"time_to_fill_p50_days":55,"computed_at":"2026-11-12T10:38:37Z"}},"role":"Backend","role_family":"Backend","seniority":"lead","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Newbury, United Kingdom"],"countries":["GB"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":77000,"max_usd":155000,"period":"year","method":"role_seniority_country_remote_cell","sample_n":54},"experience_years_min":10,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"C++","optional":false},{"name":"COBOL","optional":false},{"name":"AWS","optional":true},{"name":"Azure","optional":true},{"name":"Scrum","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-07-29T00:00:00Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-07-29","last_verified_at":"2026-11-12T14:36:51Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":107,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":0,"flags":[],"days_open":106},"description":"It's fun to work in a company where people truly BELIEVE in what they're doing!\nJob Description Summary:\nThe Infrastructure Modernization business unit is seeking a highly experienced Principal Software Engineer to join our engineering organization and provide deep technical leadership across our COBOL development ecosystem and our Enterprise Server application replatforming products. This is a hands-on, strategic role focused on designing, building, and evolving mission-critical infrastructure used by global enterprises running high-volume, high-reliability systems.In this role, you will influence architecture across multiple product lines, guide engineering best practices, and help define the future of our platform as customers modernize decades-old workloads into more agile, distributed and environments. You will partner closely with senior engineering leaders, product managers, and domain experts to drive innovation at scale.\nWhat You’ll Do\nTechnical Leadership\nArchitect, design, and implement core components within our COBOL development tools, runtime environments, and mainframe replatforming infrastructure.\n\nProvide technical direction across multiple engineering teams building compilers, runtimes, middleware, and large-scale distributed systems.\n\nDrive modernization strategies for legacy application ecosystems, including cloud migration, workload transformation, and hybrid deployment scenarios.\n\nHands-On Engineering\nOwn complex technical domains end-to-end, from design through production, balancing long-term architecture with immediate product needs.\n\nBuild highly reliable, scalable, and secure infrastructure software used in mission-critical enterprise environments.\n\nConduct deep code reviews, troubleshoot production issues, and mentor engineers in system-level design and performance optimization.\n\nCross-Functional Impact\nCollaborate with product management to shape roadmap priorities and translate customer challenges into technical solutions.\n\nWork with System Test, DevOps, and release engineering to ensure high-quality, low-risk releases across a diverse product portfolio.\n\nIntroduce and champion engineering excellence practices, including automated testing, performance benchmarking, observability, and maintainability.\n\nWhat We’re Looking For\nRequired Experience\n10+ years of professional software engineering experience, including leadership over complex, multi-team technical initiatives.\n\nDeep expertise in systems-level software development, such as compilers, runtimes, operating systems, or infrastructure-level platforms.\n\nStrong background in mission-critical, high-availability software (e.g., financial services, telecom, government, or core enterprise platforms).\n\nDemonstrated experience with COBOL, PL/I, C, or C++ -or significant experience in other lower-level languages with a willingness to dive into COBOL domain internals.\n\nProven track record building or modernizing enterprise-grade tooling, middleware, or distributed systems.\n\nAbility to decompose legacy architectures, assess modernization paths, and design scalable solutions.\n\nPreferred Qualifications\nExperience with mainframe-to-cloud migration, workload replatforming, or runtime compatibility layers.\n\nFamiliarity with Azure, AWS, or hybrid cloud architectures.\n\nUnderstanding of static and dynamic language runtimes, compiler pipelines, and virtual machine internals.\n\nPrior technical mentorship or architectural leadership spanning multiple scrum teams.\n\nStrong diagnostic skills for debugging low-level performance, memory, concurrency, or runtime issues.\n\nWho You Are\nA pragmatic engineer who balances ideal architecture with real-world constraints.\n\nPassionate about long-term maintainability and operational excellence.\n\nComfortable working with legacy systems and excited about evolving them for the future.\n\nA collaborator who elevates teams through mentorship and cross-functional alignment.\n\nSomeone who thrives in a technically rich, complex domain where your expertise has large-scale impact.\n\nWhy Join Us?\nInfluence the future of mission-critical modernization technologies used worldwide.\n\nWork with a highly experienced engineering organization with deep domain expertise.\n\nOpportunity to shape architecture and product direction across multiple major portfolios.\n\nA culture that values technical depth, thoughtful engineering, and long-term product stewardship.\n\n.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.\nAt 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.\nAs part of our commitment to a safe and trustworthy workplace, we include background and reference checks in our hiring process.\nRocket 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 . We will make a determination on your request for reasonable accommodation on a case-by-case basis.\nIf you like wild growth and working with happy, enthusiastic over-achievers, you'll enjoy your career with us!","description_format":"text","description_chars":5888,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":10,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Continuous learning"],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":[],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-11T22:30:56Z"}],"visa":[{"country":"GB","licensed_sponsor":true,"adverts_offering_sponsorship_24m":0,"sanctioned_now":false,"evidence":"Licensed UK visa sponsor (Skilled Worker)","filings_12m":null,"filings_prev_12m":null,"green_card_filings_12m":null,"median_offered_wage_usd":null,"route":"Skilled Worker","cap_exempt":false,"checked_at":"2026-11-12T09:37:45+00:00","sources":["UK Home Office: register of licensed sponsors (workers)"],"filings_for_role_12m":0}],"liveness":{"score":24,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.678,"p_room":0.36,"age_days":106,"expected_fill_days":55,"reasons":["conf:9","win:tail","crowd:"],"computed_at":"2026-11-12T10:38:37Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/rocket-software-principal-software-engineer-2","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/rocket-software-principal-software-engineer-2.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-13T00:46:20Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":1746,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-14T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.1,"usd":0.01,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":176188},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=176188"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Frocket-software-principal-software-engineer-2"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"free","price":{"credits":0,"usd":0},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Frocket-software-principal-software-engineer-2"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.1,"usd":0.01},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Frocket-software-principal-software-engineer-2"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/rocket-software-principal-software-engineer-2\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Frocket-software-principal-software-engineer-2"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":774606}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"rocketsoftware.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":774606},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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