Principal Software Engineer, Live Nation
Platform Modernization
Salary not provided
Kubernetes
Python
Kafka
Go
Terraform
Ansible
Rust
Prometheus
Grafana
REST API
Simplicity
Pulumi
Senior and Expert level
Remote from UK
Entertainment events promoter and producer
Be an early applicant
Entertainment events promoter and producer
1001+ employees
B2CLifestyleMusicEntertainmentEvents
Be an early applicant
Salary not provided
Kubernetes
Python
Kafka
Go
Terraform
Ansible
Rust
Prometheus
Grafana
REST API
Simplicity
Pulumi
Senior and Expert level
Remote from UK
1001+ employees
B2CLifestyleMusicEntertainmentEvents
Company mission
To help live music fans more easily and quickly find concert tickets and information about their favourite artists and venues.
Role
Who you are
- Are you passionate about building software that ships, gets adopted, and permanently changes how engineers work?
- Proven years of experience as a backend or platform software engineer (or equivalent experience), ideally focused on developer tooling or infrastructure automation
- Strong programming proficiency in Go or Python -- you write code regularly, not just review it. You write maintainable, testable, and observable code. Awareness of additional systems languages (e.g., Rust) is a plus
- Proven experience designing internal APIs, automation frameworks, or infrastructure control planes
- Experience with gRPC, RESTful APIs, and event-driven architectures (e.g., Kafka) for inter-service communication
- Familiarity with Kubernetes, GitLab CI/CD, and infrastructure-as-code tools like Terraform, Pulumi, or Ansible
- Understanding of SRE principles and a metrics-driven approach to software reliability and observability (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana)
- Awareness of how infrastructure works, but with a builder's mindset -- this is not an operations or SRE role
- Experience working in Agile, remote, cross-functional environments
- Eligible to work in the UK without sponsorship
- Strategic and forward-thinking; capable of designing systems that will be widely adopted across infrastructure teams
- Comfortable working autonomously and owning full lifecycle delivery of internal tooling
- Passionate about outcomes -- you build things that ship, get adopted, and make a lasting difference. Not interested in throwaway work or proofs-of-concept that never land
- Strong communication skills, with the ability to collaborate with operators, engineers, and technical leadership alike
- Focused on simplicity, usability, and reducing complexity for infrastructure consumers
- Committed to security, reliability, and high standards of code quality and maintainability
What the job involves
- The Platform Modernization team builds software systems that improve the delivery, operations, and scalability of our infrastructure platform
- The team is actively shipping and building the next generation of infrastructure self-service platforms at Ticketmaster
- As a core part of our infrastructure strategy, the team builds internal tooling and automation platforms that reduce toil, accelerate delivery, and improve the developer and operator experience across the company
- We leverage modern backend languages, Cloud-Native technologies, and infrastructure-as-code to empower service teams to manage their own environments with confidence and efficiency
- We are looking for a Principal Software Engineer to join our Platform Modernization team
- You will be the most senior engineer on the team and set the technical direction for a group of 2 lead engineers and 1 senior engineer
- You are the technical anchor -- the person who enables the team to self-direct on implementation while you own architectural decisions and technical strategy
- In this role, you'll architect and implement automation tools and internal platforms that transform how our Infrastructure Group delivers and operates services
- Your work will focus on delivering durable, maintainable software solutions that abstract infrastructure complexity and promote scale and autonomy
- The products you'll work on are real and in progress:
- Self-service Kubernetes platform -- a UI, CLI, and API for infrastructure consumers to manage namespaces, network policies, and deployments across on-prem and cloud clusters
- Infrastructure inventory and CRUD APIs -- programmatic access to infrastructure state across on-prem and cloud Kubernetes clusters
- Deployment standardization tooling -- ring promotion, automated change management, and progressive rollout systems
- Internal developer portal integration -- service catalog, team intelligence, and operational dashboards
- LLM-assisted governance tooling -- automated merge request review against infrastructure standards
- This is an opportunity to shape platform strategy and build systems that have widespread internal impact across a 13-team infrastructure organization
- What success looks like at 6 months:
- The team is self-directing on implementation with your architectural guidance
- You've shaped the technical roadmap, shipped meaningful work on at least one of the products above, and built trust with the existing team
- You go to management for product direction and priorities; you own the technical direction
- The leads come to you for technical decisions, not your manager
- You can escalate technical questions to management when you choose to, but you don't need to
- Tactical Work (40%)
- Design and implement backend systems that abstract infrastructure concerns and enable self-service capabilities
- Own the development and support of internal tools, APIs, and automation frameworks used by infrastructure and application teams
- Drive enhancements to CI/CD pipelines using GitLab, focusing on security, repeatability, and observability
- Solutions Architecture (35%)
- Define backend architectures and patterns that scale across infrastructure domains
- Create design documents, system diagrams, and proof-of-concepts that guide development and integration
- Leverage Kubernetes and infrastructure-as-code tools to deliver reusable software components and automation services
- Strategic Work (25%)
- Collaborate with senior stakeholders to align platform modernization initiatives with long-term goals
- Guide technology direction and best practices across teams
- Mentor engineers and foster a culture of strong backend engineering, maintainability, and continuous improvement
- Over time, this role grows beyond the immediate team to provide technical advisory across infrastructure domains -- influencing architecture decisions, reviewing cross-team technical proposals, and serving as a go-to technical authority for the broader infrastructure organization
- Software engineering approach to infrastructure: observability, testing, service ownership, and compliance baked in through automation -- not bolted on after
- CLI tools, APIs, and services for internal platform consumers. Frontend (React/TypeScript) when needed, but not a core responsibility
- Significant autonomy within an Agile (SAFe) environment. Management ensures strategic alignment; you own the technical execution
- Routine on-call for critical services. You have full ownership to build reliability and availability into the systems from the start -- the team that builds it, runs it
Our take
Live Nation is the world's leading live entertainment company, sitting at the top of the market in live events and ticketing. Formed in 2005, it is a major international company, with key business segments made up of concerts, ticketing, and sponsorship and advertising.
Despite its dominant position in the market, the company saw an 84% drop in revenue during 2020 and the closure of live events. Since then, however, demand has been stronger than ever for their ticket sales. This is a reflection that live events remain a clear priority for consumers and has been further reflected in Live Nation's acquisitions of companies - like Goodlive - that complement and bolster Live Nation's portfolio.
In addition to live events, a key area to watch for Live Nation will be the rise of online concert streaming, like that undertaken by competitors such as Driift. Major festivals such as Glastonbury have trialled online concerts with mixed reviews. If it proves successful, this could be a major new section of the entertainment market and a big potential part of Live Nation's future ventures.
Freddie
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
11% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Company benefits
- HEALTH: Medical, Dental and Vision benefits for you and your family, including Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) and Health Savings Accounts (HSAs)
- YOURSELF: Paid time off policy including holidays, sick time, and day off for your birthday, free concert tickets
- WEALTH: 401(k) program with company match, Stock Program Reimbursement
- FAMILY: New parent programs & support including caregiver leave and baby bonus, infertility support
- CAREER: Tuition reimbursement, student loan repayment internal growth and development programs & trainings
- OTHERS: Volunteer time off, crowdfunding network
Company HQ
Beverly Hills, CA
Leadership
Michael Rapino
(CEO & President)Michael joined Live Nation Entertainment in 2005 as CEO and President. Previously, he spent 10 years in various Marketing and Entertainment roles at Labatt's Breweries of Canada. He also held several roles at Clear Channel Communications, including CEO and President of Global Music.
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