Principal Software Engineer at Autodesk in Sheffield, GBP

Job description

• Autodesk is looking for a Principal Software Engineer to provide technical leadership for a new Electron and Chromium-based desktop platform for Autodesk web applications. In this hands-on individual contributor role, you will define the platform architecture, lead complex technical decisions, and guide engineers building the Electron runtime, Windows integrations, automated delivery systems, and shared platform capabilities. You will combine deep technical expertise with broad influence, helping the team deliver a secure, maintainable, and reusable desktop platform while remaining actively involved in design, implementation, debugging, and code review.
• You enjoy solving technical problems that do not fit neatly into a single layer of the technology stack. You are equally comfortable discussing platform architecture, reviewing TypeScript, investigating Chromium behavior, debugging a Windows issue, examining a crash report, or helping an engineer reason through a difficult design problem.
• You remain hands-on while thinking beyond your own code. You recognize when a local implementation decision could create a long-term platform problem and work with the team to find a simpler, more maintainable solution.
• You provide technical leadership through clarity and expertise rather than hierarchy. You help other engineers make good decisions, explain complex trade-offs in accessible terms, and create an environment where engineers can increasingly operate independently.
• You think of the desktop application as a platform rather than a one-off product wrapper. You care about creating clear interfaces, reducing unnecessary customization, maintaining secure boundaries, and designing capabilities that can be reused by future Autodesk products.
• You are comfortable operating in areas of uncertainty, gathering evidence, comparing alternatives, making recommendations, and changing direction when new technical information becomes available.
• We are building a new desktop platform that enables Autodesk's web-based products to deliver richer, higher-performance experiences on Windows. Forma is the first product adopting the platform, with the longer-term goal of creating reusable desktop capabilities for additional Autodesk products.
• You will join a new cross-functional platform team working across Electron, Chromium, Windows desktop integration, software delivery, security, quality, and enterprise deployment. As the technical lead for the team, you will work closely with software engineers, quality and release engineers, product partners, and specialist engineering teams across Autodesk.

Responsibilities

• Platform architecture and technical direction - approximately 30%: Define and evolve the architecture of the Electron desktop platform, including process boundaries, native capabilities, application interfaces, security controls, runtime configuration, and product integration patterns
• Hands-on platform engineering - approximately 25%: Design, prototype, implement, and review complex functionality across Electron, Chromium, Node.js, TypeScript, Windows APIs, and supporting native components
• Technical leadership and mentoring - approximately 20%: Guide engineers through design and implementation decisions, mentor team members, review complex changes, establish engineering standards, and help the team develop expertise in desktop platform engineering
• Cross-team integration and platform adoption - approximately 15%: Work with product teams and Autodesk platform teams responsible for security, identity, software distribution, telemetry, crash reporting, graphics, and other shared capabilities
• Operational readiness and engineering quality - approximately 10%: Partner with quality and release engineering to define release gates, runtime upgrade policies, observability, supportability, and production-readiness requirements
• Own the overall technical architecture of the shared desktop platform and ensure clear boundaries between reusable platform capabilities and product-specific functionality
• Define secure communication patterns between hosted web applications and privileged desktop functionality, including process isolation, inter-process communication, native API exposure, navigation controls, and application trust boundaries
• Establish the strategy for using and upgrading Electron and Chromium, including supported versions, configuration and build options, runtime feature enablement, compatibility assessment, and response to security updates
• Keep the platform as close as practical to supported upstream Electron and Chromium capabilities, avoiding unnecessary customization and long-term maintenance burden
• Lead the design of native Windows capabilities such as application lifecycle management, hardware and system-information access, GPU preference, protocol handling, operating-system integration, and enterprise deployment behavior
• Define stable interfaces through which Autodesk web applications can consume desktop capabilities without creating product-specific implementations or forks
• Work with the P3 Senior Software Engineer to break larger platform objectives into technical designs, implementation plans, dependencies, and incremental deliverables
• Provide technical guidance and mentorship to the P2 Software Engineer, helping them develop deeper expertise in Electron, Chromium, Node.js, Windows, debugging, and secure application design
• Partner with the team's SDET and CI/CD/Release Engineer to ensure the platform is testable, buildable, reproducible, diagnosable, and capable of being released through automated delivery pipelines
• Define technical requirements for build, packaging, signing, release promotion, rollback, and runtime qualification while leaving day-to-day pipeline implementation with the engineer responsible for CI/CD and release automation
• Work closely with Autodesk application-security specialists to develop threat models, address security findings, apply Electron and Chromium security best practices, and ensure privileged desktop functionality is exposed safely
• Collaborate with specialist graphics and rendering teams on interfaces and requirements related to memory, GPU selection, hardware visibility, and runtime capabilities while keeping graphics implementation within the owning teams
• Lead evaluation of new Electron and Chromium releases, significant runtime capabilities, Windows platform changes, and other technologies that may affect the platform
• Diagnose the most difficult technical issues spanning Electron, Chromium, Node.js, Windows, application lifecycle, memory, security, installation, and hosted web applications
• Use profiling, crash diagnostics, runtime tracing, native debugging tools, and Chromium developer tooling to understand complex system behavior
• Write and review architecture decision records, technical designs, platform interfaces, operational runbooks, and engineering standards
• Proactively identify architectural risks, technical debt, reliability concerns, and opportunities to simplify the platform before they become delivery or support problems
• Ensure technical decisions consider the needs of future Autodesk products as well as the immediate requirements of Forma
• Help establish an onboarding model that allows additional Autodesk web applications to adopt the desktop platform through well-defined configuration and integration points
• Participate in hiring and help establish the technical bar for engineers joining the team

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience
• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience
• Strong software engineering experience with JavaScript or TypeScript and Node.js
• Significant experience designing and delivering complex software systems or platform capabilities
• Experience with Electron, Chromium-based applications, desktop application development, or comparable systems-level application platforms
• Strong understanding of application architecture, process boundaries, asynchronous systems, security, and software lifecycle management
• Experience leading technical design and implementation across multiple engineers
• Ability to take ambiguous or open-ended technical problems from investigation through architecture, implementation, and production delivery
• Strong debugging skills across multiple components, processes, or technology layers
• Experience with automated testing, continuous integration, source control, code review, and modern software delivery practices
• Experience communicating technical trade-offs and influencing decisions across engineering teams
• Demonstrated ability to mentor engineers and raise engineering quality through technical leadership
• Deep experience with Electron architecture, including main, renderer, and preload processes, context isolation, inter-process communication, and security configuration
• Strong understanding of Chromium architecture, runtime configuration, feature flags, release lifecycle, and developer tooling
• Experience with C++, native Node.js modules, or interoperability between JavaScript and native platform APIs
• Experience developing software using Windows APIs or other systems-level Windows technologies
• Experience diagnosing memory, process, performance, startup, or crash problems in Chromium-based or native desktop applications
• Familiarity with Electron or Chromium build tooling such as GN and Ninja
• Experience with Windows application packaging, installers, code signing, updating, and enterprise software deployment
• Experience designing shared APIs, SDKs, runtimes, or platform components consumed by multiple products or engineering teams
• Experience with desktop application threat modeling and secure application architecture
• Experience with software supply-chain security, dependency management, vulnerability response, and release provenance
• Experience defining operational standards for a customer-facing desktop application

Skills

Required

• JavaScript or TypeScript
• Node.js
• Electron
• Chromium-based applications
• Desktop application development
• Application architecture
• Process boundaries
• Asynchronous systems
• Security
• Software lifecycle management
• Technical leadership
• Debugging

Preferred

• Electron architecture
• Chromium architecture
• C++
• Native Node.js modules
• Windows APIs
• GN and Ninja
• Threat modeling
• Software supply-chain security