Principal Software Engineer, Platform Modernization

Job Summary:

THE TEAM

The Automation Modernization Team is a newly established function within the Infrastructure Architecture Services segment, reporting directly to the Senior Director. This team is dedicated to driving automation initiatives that streamline processes and accelerate both software and infrastructure delivery across the organization. As a core part of our infrastructure strategy, the team will leverage cutting-edge Cloud-Native technologies, automation frameworks, and SRE principles to empower service owner teams, reduce operational toil, and enhance delivery efficiency. Together, we aim to build robust, scalable automation solutions that enable our Infrastructure Group to operate at peak performance.

THE JOB

Are you passionate about transforming infrastructure through automation? We are seeking a highly skilled Principal Software Engineer to join our newly formed Automation Modernization team. In this role, you will design and implement software automation solutions that optimize our Infrastructure Group’s operations, leveraging Cloud-Native technologies to accelerate both software and infrastructure delivery. This is a unique opportunity to grow your skills and help shape our automation strategy, empowering teams to streamline their processes.

WHAT YOU WILL BE DOING

• Tactical Work (20%): Implement planned project work while supporting complex operational issues from internal customers, focusing on scalability and performance. Hands-on coding, debugging, and deploying solutions to address infrastructure challenges. Oversee CI/CD pipeline improvements and optimizations using GitLab, ensuring high availability and accelerated software delivery.
• Solutions Architecture (40%): Design scalable architectures that enable seamless integration and consumption of infrastructure services by tech teams, focusing on maintainability and resilience. Lead the creation of comprehensive documentation, diagrams, and proof-of-concepts to support infrastructure automation initiatives. Architect robust automation solutions using Cloud-Native technologies, Kubernetes, and infrastructure-as-code tools.
• Strategic Work (40%): Lead planning sessions, roadmap discussions, and architecture reviews, providing strategic insights that guide future technology implementations. Collaborate with senior stakeholders to align automation projects with organizational priorities, influencing key decisions to optimize both software and infrastructure delivery. Mentor engineers on best practices, coding standards, and modern automation techniques, fostering a culture of continuous learning.

This is an exciting time to come on board with Ticketmaster, as we focus on efforts towards modernization and operability, expanding capacity, and enhancing our service offerings in a number of ways. You will also:

• Architect, design, develop, and deploy scalable automation tools using Go, Rust, Python, and PowerShell.
• Build intuitive frontend interfaces using TypeScript and React to enhance automation systems.
• Utilize Cloud-Native technologies, Kubernetes, and infrastructure-as-code tools like Terraform, Ansible, and Pulumi to optimize infrastructure processes.
• Develop and maintain CI/CD pipelines with GitLab to drive continuous integration and accelerate software delivery.
• Champion an SRE mindset focused on automation, high availability, Service Level Objectives (SLOs), and observability using Prometheus and Grafana.
• Collaborate closely with Infrastructure teams to identify automation opportunities and translate them into software solutions that enable service owner teams to fully own and operate their environments, while providing ongoing support and guidance.
• Focus on building robust, self-service automation solutions with support available for escalations and continuous improvements.
• Share best practices and tools to foster a collaborative learning environment and empower service teams to leverage automation.
• Complete assigned project related work from Jira tickets following Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) methodology
• Drive initiatives to ensure PCI and security compliance requirements 
• Participate in on-call rotations only for critical escalations, ensuring that service owner teams are empowered to manage day-to-day operations.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW (or TECHNICAL SKILLS)

• Strong experience in software engineering with a focus on automation, large-scale systems, and strategic planning.
• Proven expertise in at least two languages (Go, Rust, Python