Principal Software Development Engineer

Overview

We need your talent! Waters Corporation is currently seeking a DevOps Principal Engineer to join our Global Software Engineering team.

Our team understands the value of their work in the real world. As a DevOps Principal Engineer in Milford, MA you'll be working with technology used for quality testing and the development of nearly every drug taken in around the globe. These are processes that we want to optimize. Consider this, today's lab instruments can only be viewed from the lab - our mission here is to be able to enable scientists to see their lab results from Starbucks, home, anywhere you can access the internet.

We are just getting started with building our next generation best in class platform with a goal of being the "best in the industry" to support our customers across life, materials, food, and environmental sciences.

We are looking for a passionate Principal DevOps Engineer to lead our CI/CD platform initiatives in a hybrid cloud and physical instrument environment. This role combines hands-on technical expertise with strategic leadership to drive horizontal alignment across multiple development value streams and establish enterprise-scale automation practices.This role is onsite 3x/week in Milford, MA: Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday

Our organization is built on the principles of strong collaboration, cross-functional teamwork, and a relentless drive to solve problems that matter. If this is the type of culture you excel in, then we look forward to speaking with you.

Responsibilities

Internal Platform Development & Architecture

• Design, develop, and evolve internal build platforms (primarily in Python) serving 65+ active software projects.
• Architect and scale critical platform services capable of handling 10,000+ jobs with high reliability.
• Define and drive the technical roadmap, ensuring resources are aligned with long-term platform evolution.

• Establish and maintain robust CI/CD practices enabling consistent, high-quality software delivery.
• Implement and improve release processes to support a stable delivery cadence across teams.
• Identify and eliminate manual toil, driving automation and efficiency at scale.
• Align workflows across diverse development value streams to ensure horizontal integration.

• Troubleshoot and resolve complex hybrid-cloud infrastructure challenges, balancing reliability and cost.
• Support unique physical instrument integration requirements with innovative infrastructure solutions.
• Operate at both the strategic and hands-on level, ensuring architectural decisions are grounded in practical execution.
• Lead development of internal tools that enhance developer experience and accelerate delivery.

• Serve as a technical leader and mentor, elevating the capabilities of engineers across the organization.
• Drive cross-functional collaboration, ensuring smooth integration across systems, teams, and business functions.
• Establish and champion best practices, standards, and patterns for DevOps and platform engineering.
• Communicate technical strategies and trade-offs clearly with engineers, leadership, and stakeholders at all levels.

• Education & Experience: Bachelor's or Master's in Computer Science (or related field) with 10+ years of DevOps/Platform Engineering experience, including operating at scale.
• Programming Expertise: Strong proficiency in Python with a deep understanding of object-oriented design and maintainable software architecture.
• Version Control Mastery: Expert-level experience with Git, branching strategies, and governance for large multi-team repositories.
• Systems Proficiency: Advanced shell scripting (Bash, PowerShell) with fluency in both Linux and Windows operating environments.
• CI/CD Leadership: Extensive experience designing, implementing, and scaling CI/CD pipelines; proven success driving release reliability and velocity across multiple teams.
• Scale & Reliability: Track record managing large-scale build systems (tens of thousands of jobs) with high availability and performance requirements.
• Hybrid Cloud Expertise: Hands-on experience with AWS and on-premises environments, including migration and integration strategies.
• Problem-Solving Orientation: Demonstrated ability to solve complex, systemic problems and eliminate manual workflows through automation at scale.
• Technical Leadership: Proven ability to mentor engineers, influence architectural direction, and set standards across teams.
• Hands-On Development: Strong programming background with the ability to design and deliver production-quality code in addition to guiding others.

• Complex System Integration: Experience supporting or integrating with physical instruments or hardware-constrained systems.
• Proven Leadership: Demonstrated leadership experience within technical organizations, influencing direction and elevating team performance.
• Polyglot Engineering: Knowledge of multiple programming languages and build systems, with the ability to choose the right tool for the problem.
• Scale Experience: Hands-on experience scaling platforms to reliably manage very high job volumes and concurrency.
• Enterprise Context: Background operating within enterprise software development environments, balancing agility with governance.
• Configuration Management Expertise: Experience with modern configuration management frameworks such as Ansible, Puppet, or Chef.
• Cloud-Native Practices: Familiarity with containerization and orchestration technologies such as Docker.
• Advanced Python Expertise: Experience developing large-scale, maintainable Python systems and contributing to frameworks or libraries used across multiple teams.