Principal Platform Engineer

Job Description

Powering the world's payments ecosystem

ACI powers the payments ecosystem - globally, and you power ACI. You'll innovate, collaborate, and grow - in an energetic technology culture with decades of proven success. ACIers - in all roles and levels - are truly your colleagues and many are your friends. Our size and reach allow you to see the global impact of your work. You are visible, your talents are valued, and you are empowered to shape the future of payments.

About the Role

The Principal Platform Engineer is a senior individual contributor and technical leader responsible for shaping, scaling, and governing ACI's internal platforms as products , not projects. This role operates at the intersection of architecture, developer experience, cloud platforms, DevSecOps, and organizational enablement .

You will define paved roads and golden paths that enable product and delivery teams to move faster with confidence-while operating within clearly defined security, compliance, and financial guardrails . You will also act as a technical multiplier , mentoring senior engineers, influencing architectural direction, and ensuring platform capabilities are designed for scale, reliability, and inner-sourcing .

Key Responsibilities

Platform Architecture & Technical Leadership

• Serve as a technical authority for platform architecture across build-time and run-time domains (CI/CD, Kubernetes/OpenShift, cloud infrastructure, secrets, observability, and delivery tooling).
• Define and evolve reference architectures , platform standards, and design guardrails aligned with enterprise security, compliance, and FinOps expectations.
• Lead architectural design reviews and proactively guide teams away from bespoke or non-scalable solutions.
• Drive cloud-agnostic and hybrid designs , supporting customer-managed, SaaS, and on-prem deployments.

Platform as a Product

• Treat platform capabilities as products with roadmaps , clear ownership, success metrics, and adoption goals.
• Design and maintain golden paths for common developer workflows (build, test, deploy, operate).
• Partner with Product, Client Delivery, and Engineering teams to reduce cognitive load and delivery friction.
• Ensure platforms are self-service, automated, and documented , minimizing ticket-driven workflows.

DevSecOps & Automation

• Lead adoption of everything-as-code practices (IaC, policy-as-code, pipelines, configuration).
• Embed security, quality, and compliance early (shift-left) into platform workflows.
• Influence CI/CD standards, testing frameworks, artifact management, and release automation.
• Drive consistency across GitHub, pipelines, branching, and SDLC tooling.

Cloud, Kubernetes & Runtime Platforms

• Provide deep expertise in Kubernetes and OpenShift , including multi-arch, multi-cloud, and customer-managed environments.
• Guide platform support for AWS, Azure, GCP , and Red Hat OpenShift with a consistent operating model.
• Define Day-0, Day-1, and Day-2 operational tooling (installers, upgrades, health checks, DR, secrets rotation).

Mentorship & Inner-Sourcing

• Act as a mentor and technical coach for senior and staff-level engineers.
• Set expectations for high-quality design documentation , ADRs, and knowledge sharing.
• Promote and enable inner-sourcing , making it easy for product teams to contribute back to the platform.
• Be accountable for onboarding success of new engineers through guidance and technical stewardship.

AI-Assisted Engineering & Innovation

• Champion AI-assisted engineering practices embedded into everyday workflows (testing, reviews, documentation, insights).
• Help define guardrails for responsible AI usage within platform engineering.
• Explore and prototype AI-enabled platform capabilities that improve developer productivity and platform reliability.

Required Qualifications

• 12+ years of experience in software engineering, devops, cloud, or platform engineering roles.
• Deep hands-on expertise with:
  • Kubernetes and/or OpenShift
  • CI/CD systems and SDLC tooling
  • Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, ARM, CloudFormation, etc.)
  • Cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP)
• Proven ability to influence architecture without formal authority .
• Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to explain complex topics to diverse audiences.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience operating platforms at enterprise scale with strong governance requirements.
• Background in customer-managed or regulated environments .
• Experience defining or operating an Internal Developer Platform (IDP) .
• Familiarity with DevSecOps tooling, policy-as-code, and FinOps practices.
• Experience contributing to or leading inner-source initiatives.

What Success Looks Like

• Platform capabilities are adopted because they are the easiest and safest path , not because they are mandated.
• Product teams ship faster with fewer escalations and less manual intervention.
• Architecture decisions scale across teams and environments without constant rework.
• Engineers view the platform as a career accelerator , not a constraint.

Applicants must be currently authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis. This position does not offer sponsorship for employment visa status or work permit now or in the future.

In return for your expertise, we offer opportunities for growth, career development, and a competitive compensation and benefits package-all within an innovative and collaborative work environment.

Are you ready to help us transform the payments ecosystem? To learn more about ACI Worldwide, visit our web site at Job ID (Requisition #18979)

ACI Worldwide is an AA/EEO employer in the United States, which includes providing equal opportunity for protected veterans and individuals with disabilities, and an EEO employer globally.

Important Notice About Recruitment Scams
Job seekers should be aware of ongoing recruitment scams where individuals or organizations impersonate legitimate companies to offer fake job opportunities. These scams often involve requests for personal information, payments, or interviews through unofficial channels. Please be cautious and verify any communications claiming to be from our company ( / @aciworldwide.com). The ACI Worldwide recruitment team will always follow official channels and will never request payment.

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About Us

ACI Worldwide is a global leader in mission-critical, real-time payments software. Our proven, secure and scalable software solutions enable leading corporations, fintechs and financial disruptors to process and manage digital payments, power omni-commerce payments, present and process bill payments, and manage fraud and risk. We combine our global footprint with a local presence to drive the real-time digital transformation of payments and commerce.