Principal Backend (Java/ Python) Software Engineer – Cloud Platform & AI

Oracle is seeking a Principal Data Systems Software Engineer to design, architect, and build the next generation of cloud-native platform services powering Oracle Database Cloud.

This is primarily a core software engineering role focused on large-scale distributed systems, cloud-native architecture, and enterprise platform development. The ideal candidate has extensive experience designing and building highly scalable backend systems, microservices, and cloud platforms, along with hands-on experience applying modern AI technologies such as Generative AI, LLMs, AI Agents, and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) to solve real-world engineering problems.

You will work on critical platform capabilities including database provisioning, lifecycle management, monitoring, automation, and operational intelligence while helping evolve the platform with AI-powered capabilities that improve automation, reliability, and developer productivity.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, architect, and develop highly scalable cloud-native services supporting Oracle Database on OCI.
• Build enterprise-grade distributed systems emphasizing scalability, resiliency, high availability, observability, and security.
• Design and implement microservices and event-driven architectures for mission-critical cloud platform services.
• Drive architecture and technical design for large-scale backend platform components.
• Build platform capabilities for provisioning, lifecycle management, monitoring, automation, and operational workflows.
• Apply Generative AI technologies—including LLMs, AI Agents, and RAG—to enhance platform intelligence and operational automation.
• Design enterprise integrations across databases, APIs, cloud services, and internal platforms.
• Collaborate closely with Product Management, Compute Engineering, Operations, and other Oracle engineering teams.
• Lead technical initiatives, mentor engineers, and influence engineering best practices.
• Troubleshoot complex production issues and drive root cause analysis for highly available cloud services.

Qualifications & Skills

Required

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science or related field.
• 6+ years of experience designing and developing enterprise software products or cloud platform services.
• Strong experience building large-scale distributed systems and cloud-native applications.
• Proven experience designing and implementing backend services, microservices, and event-driven architectures.
• Strong software engineering fundamentals including:
  • Distributed systems
  • Concurrency
  • System design
  • API design
  • Data modeling
  • Performance optimization
• Strong programming experience in Java and/or Python.
• Experience developing production services on OCI, AWS, Azure, or GCP.
• Experience with Kubernetes, Containers, REST APIs, and cloud-native technologies.
• Experience building enterprise software with scalability, availability, observability, and security as core design principles.
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines, Infrastructure as Code (Terraform), and DevOps practices.
• Experience integrating enterprise systems, databases, and cloud services.

AI Experience

Hands-on experience applying modern AI technologies in production systems, including one or more of the following:

• Generative AI applications
• Large Language Models (LLMs)
• Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)
• AI Agents
• Prompt Engineering
• Model orchestration frameworks
• Vector databases and embeddings
• AI evaluation frameworks
• AI inference services

Note: AI/ML expertise is expected as part of building modern intelligent cloud services. However, this role is fundamentally a software engineering and distributed systems position rather than an AI research or data science role.

Preferred Qualifications

Experience with one or more of:

• Database platforms or database internals
• Enterprise cloud platform development
• AI Copilots or Agentic AI platforms
• MCP (Model Context Protocol)
• Knowledge Graphs
• Semantic Search
• Linux internals
• Performance engineering
• Multi-tenancy
• SLO-driven service engineering
• AI governance and responsible AI
• Enterprise workload modernization

What We're Looking For

We are looking for engineers who have:

• Built enterprise software products used at large scale.
• Designed and developed distributed systems running in production.
• Strong backend development expertise in Java and/or Python.
• Experience architecting cloud-native services and microservices.
• A passion for applying AI technologies to improve enterprise platforms rather than building standalone AI products.
• Excellent system design and technical leadership skills.

Self-Assessment

You may be a great fit if you can answer "Yes" to most of these:

• Have I designed and built large-scale enterprise software or cloud platform services?
• Have I architected distributed systems that run reliably at production scale?
• Am I experienced in Java and/or Python backend development?
• Have I designed cloud-native microservices with scalability, observability, and security in mind?
• Have I applied Generative AI, LLMs, RAG, or AI Agents to solve enterprise software problems?
• Can I lead technical design discussions and mentor engineers?

Career Level - IC4