Principal Engineer, Workhuman
3 days a week in office (Parkwest Business Park, Dublin)
Cloud-based, human capital management software solutions
Be an early applicant
Cloud-based, human capital management software solutions
1001+ employees
Be an early applicant
3 days a week in office (Parkwest Business Park, Dublin)
1001+ employees
Company mission
To make work more human for every person and business on the planet through employee recognition.
Role
Who you are
- 10+ years in enterprise Java development with Spring, microservices, distributed systems and AWS
- Deep expertise in event-driven architectures, message-oriented middleware (Apache Kafka), and patterns like outbox, saga, and eventual consistency
- Experience with OpenTelemetry instrumentation, distributed tracing, and observability platforms (Prometheus, Grafana, CloudWatch)
- Proven ability to balance cost, performance, and visibility in large-scale platform systems
- Skilled communicator who can translate complex platform concepts into simple, understandable patterns for engineers
- Created libraries, frameworks, or standards that simplify complex platform capabilities while maintaining security and governance
- Successfully influenced technical direction and elevated the capabilities of teams around you
- Successfully migrated enterprise applications from legacy systems to modern architectures at scale
What the job involves
- We are looking for an experienced Principal Engineer to lead and shape our Platform Technologies team, Foundation
- This role is critical to building and maintaining the core technical infrastructure that powers Workhuman's entire engineering organization
- You'll be responsible for the foundational platform technologies that enable 300+ engineers to build reliable, observable, and highly performant distributed systems
- Our Foundation squad owns the technical bedrock of Workhuman's platform architecture
- We solve complex, low-level platform challenges that most engineers never need to think about—messaging infrastructure, distributed tracing, observability at scale, service-to-service communication patterns, and the deep technical systems that enable teams to focus on delivering business value
- We believe in building robust, standards-based solutions that provide excellent developer experience while maintaining operational excellence
- Kafka Migration Program - You'll continue to support the enterprise-wide migration from ActiveMQ to Kafka, which involved removing distributed XA transactions and replacing with outbox pattern, establishing Schema Registry governance, and creating Kafka observability frameworks
- Unified Observability Platform - Architect OpenTelemetry-based instrumentation for all services, centralised configuration with ADOT collectors, integration with Managed Prometheus and X-Ray, unified Grafana dashboards, cost-efficient architecture operating below commercial SaaS alternatives
- Service Communication Standards - Establish Edge Authentication Lambda for token translation, header propagation libraries for distributed correlation, W3C trace context integration, and standards that make secure, traceable communication the default
- Tech Stack:
- Apache Kafka, Kafka Streams, Schema Registry, OpenTelemetry, ADOT, Amazon Managed Prometheus, AWS X-Ray, CloudWatch, Grafana, Java 8/17, Spring Boot, Microservices, RESTful APIs, ECS Fargate, API Gateway, Lambda, Terraform, Docker, GitLab CI/CD, Oracle DB, PostgreSQL, NoSQL
- You'll architect and build Workhuman's entire observability strategy using OpenTelemetry, ADOT, AWS X-Ray, and Managed Prometheus - creating a unified platform for metrics, traces, and logs across all AWS accounts
- Continue the enterprise-wide migration from ActiveMQ to Apache Kafka, establishing event-driven architecture standards across 300+ engineers
- Design service-to-service communication patterns, authentication systems (Edge Auth Lambda), and distributed tracing standards using W3C trace context
- Solve the hardest, lowest-level platform problems that enable teams to focus on business value without thinking about infrastructure complexity
- Work with architects and senior engineers to shape platform architecture and establish standards that the entire engineering organisation depends on
- Make complex platform capabilities simple and accessible through excellent developer experience and robust frameworks
Our take
Companies are increasingly recognising the value of data to drive business decisions. Workhuman has highlighted the impact of employee recognition on workforce performance and has developed an SaaS platform to address this.
Workhuman has launched new reporting features in its Admin Hub to enhance recognition program management. These updates provide program managers with improved control and access to insights from their organisation’s Social Recognition program. The new "Manage Reports" feature allows HR leaders to create and customise reports in real-time, making data more actionable and comprehensible. The "Report Access" function enables managers to authorise users to access centralised reports, eliminating the need for complex spreadsheets.
For 25 years, Workhuman has pioneered employee recognition, fostering appreciation, enhancing performance, and promoting inclusivity. The company’s platform captures authentic human moments and turns them into actionable insights, helping businesses make informed decisions and shape their culture. Workhuman continues to innovate, aiming to improve the reporting experience for its customers.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
-6% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 3 rounds)
Oct 2004
$9.3m
SERIES B
Jan 2003
$5.4m
SERIES A
Total funding: $15m
Company HQ
Framingham, MA
Leadership
Eric Mosley
(Co-Founder & CEO)Co-founder and CEO, leading the company since 1999. Was previously an Internet Consultant at CSK Consultant.
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