Coupa makes margins multiply through its community-generated AI and industry-leading total spend management platform for businesses large and small. Coupa AI is informed by trillions of dollars of direct and indirect spend data across a global network of 10M+ buyers and suppliers. We empower you with the ability to predict, prescribe, and automate smarter, more profitable business decisions to improve operating margins.
Why join Coupa?- Pioneering Technology: At Coupa, we're at the forefront of innovation, leveraging the latest technology to empower our customers with greater efficiency and visibility in their spend.
- Collaborative Culture: We value collaboration and teamwork, and our culture is driven by transparency, openness, and a shared commitment to excellence.
- Global Impact: Join a company where your work has a global, measurable impact on our clients, the business, and each other.
Learn more on Life at Coupa blog and hear from our employees about their experiences working at Coupa.
The Impact of a Principal Software Engineer at Coupa:The Principal Software Engineer will serve as a backend architect and visionary leader, responsible for the overall design, strategy, and implementation of our core .NET services. You will tackle our most complex technical and business challenges, leading without authority and serving as a key strategic partner to VPs of Engineering and Architecture.
Your work will directly impact the productivity of hundreds of engineers and the performance of a platform that serves the world's largest enterprises. This role requires a leader who can operate at both 30,000 feet-crafting long-term vision-and 3 feet-diving deep into C# code alongside our top engineers to solve critical problems.
What You'll Do:- Architectural Vision & Strategy: Define and drive the long-term vision and multi-year strategy for Coupa's backend .NET architecture. Make strategic decisions on migrating legacy monoliths to highly scalable, cloud-native microservices.
- Enterprise-Wide Technical Leadership: Act as a lead contributor on key or critical projects with broad design issues. Provide technical advice and counsel that impacts the technical and business direction of the entire company, extending across several departments.
- Pave the Engineering Path: Establish and enforce best practices for API-driven services (REST, GraphQL), microservice orchestration, data transport, and platform monitoring across all backend initiatives.
- Drive Innovation: Evaluate and implement cutting-edge technologies in distributed computing, asynchronous messaging (Kafka), and integrate AI/ML platform tooling directly into core business spend capabilities.
- Cross-Department Delivery: Take responsibility for the delivery of complex backend services on set timelines by coordinating seamlessly across multiple engineering departments and product teams.
- Mentorship & Standards: Serve as a subject matter expert on a wide range of specialty areas. Mentor Senior and Lead engineers, elevating the craft of backend engineering at Coupa.
What You Will Bring to Coupa- Experience: 15+ years of Software Engineering experience within an enterprise-grade B2B SaaS environment, with significant leadership and architectural roles.
- Core Technical Mastery:
- Deep, proven expertise in C# and the modern .NET ecosystem (.NET 8/10).
- Extensive experience designing and scaling API-driven services and event-driven microservice architectures.
- Profound understanding of modern cloud ecosystems (AWS, Azure), container orchestration (Kubernetes), and high-throughput transaction processing.
- Database & Data Architecture: Expert in SQL Server, NoSQL, relational database management, query optimization, and managing large-scale data processing under heavy concurrent loads.
- Strategic Influence: Proven ability to influence and lead cross-functional teams without formal authority, driving alignment on complex technical decisions across senior leadership.
- Execution in Ambiguity: A track record of thriving in ambiguity, transforming complex, high-level business problems into structured, actionable, and resilient technical solutions.
- Education: Advanced degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.
The successful candidate's starting salary will be determined based on permissible, non-discriminatory factors such as skills, experience, and geographic location.
At Coupa, we are 100% committed to creating and nurturing an environment that supports your physical, mental, and community well-being. We offer a comprehensive suite of benefits designed to help you and your family thrive:
Global Well-Being Perks (For All Employees Globally)- Global Wellness Days: Enjoy two designated, company-wide paid wellness days off each year (typically the first Friday in March and the last Friday in September) so the entire global team can unplug, step away, and recharge together .
- Birthday Time-Off: Celebrate your day! Coupa provides a paid day off on your birthday or another day of your choice within your birthday month .
- Volunteer Time Off (VTO): Giving back is in our DNA. We offer 40 hours of paid VTO annually to support the community initiatives and volunteer programs you are passionate about .
- Employee Assistance Program (EAP): Access free, confidential, 24/7/365 counseling and resources for emotional support, work-life solutions, financial advice, legal guidance, and support for new parents .
- Business Travel Protection: Travel with peace of mind. Zurich Travel Assist provides medical, safety, pre-trip planning, and emergency support during any business travel .
- Referral Bonus Program: Share the Coupa experience! Receive generous monetary referral bonuses when you successfully refer talented friends or acquaintances who are hired into open roles .
Please note: In addition to these global well-being perks, Coupa offers highly competitive, location-specific benefits packages (which include comprehensive medical/dental insurance, retirement/pension plans, and life or accident protection) tailored to your primary work location. Your recruiter will walk you through the specific regional benefits package for this role during the interview process.
Coupa complies with relevant laws and regulations regarding equal opportunity and offers a welcoming and inclusive work environment. Decisions related to hiring, compensation, training, or evaluating performance are made fairly, and we provide equal employment opportunities to all qualified candidates and employees.
Please be advised that inquiries or resumes from recruiters will not be accepted.
By submitting your application, you acknowledge that you have read Coupa's Privacy Policy and understand that Coupa receives/collects your application, including your personal data, for the purposes of managing Coupa's ongoing recruitment and placement activities, including for employment purposes in the event of a successful application and for notification of future job opportunities if you did not succeed the first time. You will find more details about how your application is processed, the purposes of processing, and how long we retain your application in our Privacy Policy.
We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses and identifying potential inconsistencies or verification signals in application materials based on available information. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.
