Senior Principal Software Engineer

Are you interested in being part of a small team tasked to envision, design and build Splunk’s next generation Search Processing Language, aka SPL2? We’re working on the cutting edge of language design for data analysis and correlation, evolving an easy to learn, fluent and expressive language to search data-to-everything. Your work will impact all components and services where searches are generated, stored, processed and reasoned about across Splunk’s full stack.

Join us as we pursue our exciting new vision to make machine data accessible, usable and valuable to everyone. We are a company filled with people who are passionate about our product and seek to deliver the best experience for our customers. At Splunk, we’re committed to our work, customers, having fun and most importantly to each other’s success. Learn more about Splunk careers and how you can become a part of our journey!

What We Offer You: Wow, I want that

• A constant stream of new things to learn. You’ll learn how our whole stack works, from data ingestion and storage to searching, reporting and building dashboards, all in distributed environments. We’re also always expanding into new areas like machine learning, bringing in open source projects and contributing back, exploring new technologies, and seeking new ways to make our stack more developer-friendly.
• Impact. We give our engineers an environment in which they can contribute from day one while also providing opportunities for learning and growth. The work you’ll perform will directly impact the experience of each one of our customers.
• Skilled and dedicated peers, all the way from engineering and QA to product management and customer support. We are an engineering and product-focused company. Our engineers take a leading role in designing, architecting, building and testing our product. As we scale Splunk to new levels, engineers have delivered critical new features such as data models and pattern detection, to name a few.
• Breadth and depth. Want to work on an area that spans backend and frontend and SDKs? SPL2 is that. Want to go deep into optimizing how we translate SPL2 to a database backend to make it as efficient as it can be? Love to design a new language feature to make performing some complex but commonly used data operation dead easy? We have that too, and more!
• Growth and mentorship. We believe in growing engineers through ownership and leadership opportunities. We also believe mentors help both sides of the equation.
• A stable, collaborative and supportive work environment. We are totally remote friendly. You can choose to work from a Splunk location or you can be in any US time zone and work with the rest of the team.
• Work-life balance. We don’t expect people to work 12-hour days. We want you to have a successful time outside of work too. We trust our colleagues to be responsible with their time and commitment, and believe that balance helps cultivate an outstanding environment.

What You’ll Do

• You will design and implement new features in SPL2 as well as the opportunity to define and perform various SPL2 optimizations and /or modifications.
• You’ll apply SPL2 to heterogeneous data sources by translating it to other query languages.
• You’ll create a set of language services to enable partner teams to leverage SPL2 in the next generation of Splunk products and services.
• Contribute to maintaining our build system, codebase, tests and development process in an awesome shape.
• Work with internal and external customers to refine our team’s understanding of target scenarios and incorporate their feedback into incremental improvements of our product.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities: I’ve already done that or have that

• Hands-on experience developing and debugging on any object oriented language like C++, Java, C#, Kotlin, etc. on a professional basis.
• A good understanding of existing query languages like SQL, SPL etc.
• A good foundation in data structures, algorithms, software design, and architecture of modern distributed systems.
• Strong software engineering practices, testing, using distributed source control, and continuous integration and delivery.
• Experience crafting and delivering software as a service and working with cloud infrastructure services such as AWS EC2, S3, Kubernetes, etc. is desirable but not required.
• Experience working in language design, compiler building, and abstract syntax trees is a plus.
• Expert level experience with query languages.
• You have experience in query language design, query mapping, language translation, ASTs, visitors, optimizers, query compensation, manipulating expression trees, conceptualizing complex queries etc.
• Expert level experience producing query abstractions
• You have extensive experience creating and/or maintaining advanced query abstractions like LINQ, Spark or Flink.
• Demonstrated ability to design simple and clear APIs for complex functionality
• You have empathy for developers and expert skills in producing APIs that allow downstream developers to write beautiful code.
• Desire to Learn and Adapt. We have a lot of projects going on at once, and you’ll have to learn to navigate the code and features. You’ll constantly be learning new areas and new technologies.
• Passion. Our customers are passionate about Splunk, and we want the same from our engineers. We want you to actively own your work and be excited about your projects.
• Ability to work with multiple programming languages. We have code in several languages, ranging from Go and Java to Python and JavaScript. In this position you’ll be mostly using Java, Go with occasional C/C++.

Education: Got it

• Requires a minimum of 15 years of related experience with a technical Bachelor’s degree; or 10 years and a technical Master’s degree; or a PhD with 8 years’ experience; or equivalent experience.

This isn’t a job – it’s a life changer – are you ready?

Splunk has been named one of San Francisco Bay Area’s “Best Places to Work” by the San Francisco Business Times, ten years in a row. We offer a highly competitive compensation package and a plethora of benefits.

Splunk is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. We value diversity at our company. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, or any other applicable legally protected characteristics in the location in which the candidate is applying. For job positions in San Francisco, CA, and other locations where required, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation.

Note: Splunk provides flexibility and choice in the working arrangement for most roles, including remote and/or in-office roles. We have a market-based pay structure which varies by location.  Please note that the base pay range is a guideline and for candidates who receive an offer, the base pay will vary based on factors such as work location as set out below, as well as the knowledge, skills and experience of the candidate. In addition to base pay, this role is eligible for incentive compensation and benefits, and may be eligible for equity.

Benefits are an important part of Splunk’s Total Rewards package. This role is eligible for a competitive benefits package which includes medical, dental, vision, a 401(k) plan and match, paid time off, an ESPP and much more! Learn more about our comprehensive benefits and wellbeing offering here.

Base Pay Range 

SF Bay Area, Seattle Metro, and New York City Metro Area

Base Pay Range:  $212,000 - 291,500 per year

California (excludes SF Bay Area), Washington (excludes Seattle Metro), Washington DC Metro, and Massachusetts

Base Pay Range:  $199,200 - 273,900 per year

All other cities and states excluding California, Washington, Massachusetts, New York City Metro Area and Washington DC Metro Area.

Base Pay Range:  $188,000 - 258,500 per year

Thank you for your interest in Splunk!