Principal Software Engineer

Employment Type

Permanent

Closing Date

21 Dec 2025 11 : 59pm

Job Title

Principal Software Engineer

Job Summary

As a Principal Software Engineer, your pioneer and lead the design of software solutions to ensure our software engineering capability and output is world class. You influence a diverse set of stakeholders and team members to shape and deliver complex and high value programs of work. Your deep technical skills and experience in leading the software development lifecycle, continuous learning mindset, and focus on team leadership are critical to success in this role.

Job Description

What is the focus of the role?

As a Software Engineering Principal, you will drive Telstra’s technical vision and ensure the successful delivery of high-quality software. You will lead the architectural design and development of complex software systems, making high-level technical decisions to guide the direction of our products and technology stack. Your role is to evolve with the pace of technology, contribute to the latest tech discussions with both technical and non-technical stakeholders, and drive innovation by exploring new technologies and methodologies to improve our software development processes and product quality. You will provide technical leadership and mentorship to the engineering team, fostering a culture of continuous learning and innovation. Collaborating closely with cross-functional teams, you will align technical solutions with business goals and drive projects to successful completion. You will tackle challenging technical problems, make high-level decisions, and document best practices to ensure robust, scalable, and efficient software that is easy to maintain. Sharing knowledge to uplift others in the team is a key part of your role. You should have exceptional leadership and exposure in managerial competencies

Who We Are

We're an iconic Aussie brand with a global footprint. Our purpose is to build a connected future so everyone can thrive. We're all about providing the best experience and delivering the best tech on the best network.

This includes making Telstra the place you want to work. For you, that means a having career that grows with you and working with a team powered by human connection that prioritises wellbeing and choice.

What We Offer

Performance-related pay

Access to thousands of learning programs so you can level-up

Global presence across 22 countries; opportunities to work where we do business.

Purchased annual leave scheme

Additional Telstra day off

Additional 30% off Telstra products and services

Toolkit provided (laptop + mobile phone + plan paid for)

What You’ll Do

Actively participate in building technical capability through direct mentoring of the team in software engineering practices, understanding of new and emerging technologies, tools, approaches and processes.

Contribute to the continuous evolution of technical components managed by domain by working on technology and architecture roadmaps (mid-term and long-term views).

Own the engineering operations for the services that the DevOps teams have deployed in production.

Work across teams to foster an architecture that enables iterative, autonomous development and future scaling.

Build strong commercial capability across multiple teams by modelling well-developed commercial thinking, balancing cost and value to decide the most economic action that delivers good outcomes.

Actively drive and participate in designing and developing overall quality and test strategy for the solution that is built in all phases of the software development lifecycle.

Foster a culture of observability across several teams and help them use operational data to improve stability and performance of their domains.

Actively collaborate with the security team to foster and model a security-first mindset and apply the organisation's security strategy across multiple teams.

Demonstrate and influence effective decision making and responsible actions, without having the total picture, to handle risk, change, and uncertainty across several teams during routine business, as well as when in high-pressure situations.

Actively build a culture of knowledge sharing and documentation that is based on giving and receiving positive and constructive feedback. Use this as a base for continuous learning and capability building.

Actively model Telstra’s values and facilitate inclusive discussions across multiple teams that create goal-driven alignment with organisational strategy and principles, as well as identifying actionable continuous improvement opportunities.

Contribute to recruitment of permanent employees and partner resources to build highly productive teams.

Ensure that co-workers are treated respectfully and without any form of discrimination, harassment or victimisation.

About You

Strong background in Programming Languages (Java / Python / Node.JS), Tools and Frameworks.

Min of 12 years’ experience in Software Product Architecture, Development, Testing, and Support of Production Software.

Experience in designing automated test design and developing test automation frameworks (Cucumber, Selenium, Java / Playwright, Javascript).

Involved in the design and implementation of secure, scalable, fault-tolerant systems in cloud (AWS).

Experience with microservices architecture and development and container orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes or other containerisation tech).

Experience with operations decision making and incident management.

Understanding of Security (Authentication and Authorisation) and its importance around various different architectures.

Experience in DevOps software development / deployment practices (including CI and CD), source control and pipelines as code, to reduce cycle time while retaining quality.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are encouraged to apply.

As part of your application with Telstra, you may receive communications from us on +

• (for job applications in Australia) and +
• (for job applications in the Philippines and India).

When you join our team, you become part of a welcoming and inclusive community where everyone is respected, valued and celebrated. We actively seek individuals from various backgrounds, ethnicities, genders and abilities because we know that diversity not only strengthens our team but also enriches our work. We have zero tolerance for harassment of any kind, and we prioritise creating a workplace culture where everyone is safe and can thrive.

As part of the hiring process, all identified candidates will undergo a background check, and the results will play a role in the final decision regarding your application.