Principal Platform Engineer

Principal Platform EngineerLocation: Al Khobar, Saudi ArabiaRole OverviewWe are seeking a highly experienced Principal Platform Engineer to take technical ownership of a complex, real-time technology platform. This is a hands-on individual contributor role, not an engineering management position.You will define platform architecture, solve complex engineering challenges, contribute directly to production code, and provide technical direction across backend, cloud, data and emerging AI capabilities.Key ResponsibilitiesOwn and evolve the architecture of a large-scale distributed SaaS platform.Remain hands-on across coding, prototyping, debugging, code reviews and system design.Design scalable backend services, APIs, data pipelines and real-time/streaming systems.Drive architecture across cloud infrastructure, data platforms, security and platform services.Lead technical direction for GenAI/LLM capabilities, including RAG, AI agents, tool/function calling and MCP.Establish engineering standards across testing, CI/CD, observability, reliability and release management.Mentor senior engineers and influence technical decisions across multiple teams.Work closely with Product, Engineering, Hardware and other stakeholders.Requirements10+ years of software engineering experience, with experience operating at Staff, Principal, Lead Architect or equivalent level.Strong experience designing and building large-scale distributed systems, SaaS platforms or backend platforms.Strong hands-on programming experience in at least one of:C#/.NETGo/GolangPythonJavaNode.js / TypeScriptStrong experience with AWS and/or GCP, Kubernetes, containers, Terraform and CI/CD.Strong understanding of microservices, APIs, data stores, streaming and production operations.Experience owning architecture from design through implementation, deployment and scaling.Exposure to LLMs, RAG, AI agents, tool calling or other production GenAI systems.Ability to provide Principal-level technical leadership while remaining highly hands-on.Nice to HavePalantir Foundry / AIP or Databricks experience.Ontologies, data lineage and governed data platforms.MCP and agent-runtime architecture.IoT, connected devices, device-to-cloud or high-volume event processing.Experience with real-time industrial or enterprise platforms.Ideal ProfileA Staff/Principal-level engineer who still codes, has built complex production platforms at scale, understands distributed systems and cloud architecture deeply, and has the technical breadth to move across backend, data, infrastructure and AI technologies.