Principal Software Engineer – Data Infrastructure

Principal Software Engineer – Data Infrastructure

Location: Ireland Company: HubSpot Contract: Permanent Seniority: Senior

About the Team

HubSpot's Data Infrastructure team is responsible for building and evolving the shared data store platforms that power the company's products and internal systems at scale. Our mission is to provide a unified data platform and deliver databases as a service, making it easy, performant, and reliable for engineers across HubSpot to build upon.

This team owns and develops critical foundational systems including HBase, Kafka, Elasticsearch, MySQL/Vitess, Hadoop, Iceberg, and Qdrant. We also manage the platform capabilities, abstractions, and workflows that enable product teams to effectively utilize these systems. Our scope encompasses big data, SQL and storage infrastructure, batch processing, stream processing, and search. This is an engineering-driven organization focused on shaping the long-term evolution of how HubSpot builds with data.

About the Role

We are seeking a Principal Software Engineer to help define the technical future of Data Infrastructure at HubSpot. This is a hands-on role for a builder who is passionate about owning the architecture and evolution of the foundational data systems that underpin HubSpot's products.

As a Principal Engineer, you will play a key role in defining how our data stores scale, how developers interact with them, and what platform patterns we should create to empower teams across HubSpot to build faster on reliable, high-leverage infrastructure. Principal Engineers at HubSpot are expected to remain close to the code, lead high-impact initiatives end-to-end, and influence technical direction beyond their immediate team. This role requires the ability to work across storage engines, developer-facing platform design, and large-scale architectural strategies while remaining a hands-on contributor.

Key Responsibilities

• Own the Future of Data Stores: Shape the technical direction for data platforms, focusing on data stores and surrounding systems. Drive architectural decisions related to scaling, access patterns, tenancy, performance, and developer experience. Define the next generation of HubSpot's database platform.
• Be a Hands-On Builder: Regularly write production code and lead complex initiatives from conception to rollout. Build internal frameworks, APIs, and platform capabilities to enhance the adoption, extension, and evolution of HubSpot's data stores. Transform ambiguous infrastructure challenges into simple, scalable systems with clear technical direction.
• Lead Platform Architecture: Work across big data, SQL/Vitess, batch, stream processing, and search to establish consistent platform patterns and domain-specific depth. Define reusable abstractions for data storage, ingestion, processing, and access to reduce fragmentation. Champion simplicity, clarity, and extensibility in systems.
• Influence the Engineering Organization: Partner with engineering and product leaders to align infrastructure direction with business needs. Guide technical trade-offs, unblock decisions, and elevate the architectural standard for platform work. Act as a multiplier through design reviews, technical mentoring, and principled decision-making.

What You Bring

• Deep experience building and evolving large-scale distributed systems, particularly storage systems, data infrastructure, or foundational backend platforms.
• Strong architectural instincts with a preference for simplicity, consistency, clear boundaries, and long-term platform leverage.
• A proven track record of owning and delivering complex, cross-team technical initiatives with significant impact.
• Comfort working across multiple technology layers, from storage engines and data flows to APIs, internal frameworks, and developer experience.
• A hands-on approach: lead by building, debugging, reviewing, and shipping code.
• The ability to quickly grasp new technical areas, form well-reasoned opinions, and guide teams toward optimal long-term decisions.

Why This Role Matters

HubSpot's future success relies on data platforms that are not only reliable but also serve as powerful enablers of product innovation. As a Principal Software Engineer in Data Infrastructure, you will be instrumental in designing these platforms, defining their scalability, and shaping how engineers across HubSpot leverage them to build the next generation of our products.