Principal Software Engineer

What's the role? As a Principal Software Engineer, you will help shape the future architecture of HERE’s mapmaking platform. You will drive large-scale modernization initiatives, establish engineering standards, and create scalable platform capabilities that support multiple generations of HERE products. You will operate at the intersection of software engineering, architecture, platform strategy, and technical leadership. Working across engineering organizations, you will define technical direction and help create interoperable systems that support HERE’s current and future products. In This Role, You Will Have The Opportunity To Drive the evolution of HERE’s mapmaking ecosystem from legacy technologies toward a unified, topology-based cloud platform.Lead the modernization and consolidation of mapmaking architectures into a scalable platform that supports current and future products.Design and influence platform architecture, APIs, shared data contracts, and interoperability standards across engineering domains.Create reusable platform capabilities that improve engineering productivity, consistency, and speed of delivery.Simplify end-to-end workflows by reducing platform complexity and improving data quality, governance, transparency, and certification.Guide the design and development of secure, reliable, and highly scalable distributed systems using modern cloud-native technologies.Champion engineering excellence through Agile development, DevOps practices, CI/CD automation, and operational best practices.Influence technical strategy and collaborate with engineering managers, architects, product leaders, and stakeholders across the organization.Foster a culture of collaboration, innovation, continuous learning, and technical excellence. This role offers a unique opportunity to influence engineering direction across multiple teams while helping define the future foundation of HERE’s global mapmaking capabilities. Who are you? You enjoy solving complex technical challenges and creating scalable solutions that deliver broad organizational impact. You combine strong software engineering expertise with platform thinking, architectural leadership, and a passion for modernization. To be successful in this role, it would be ideal if you bring: Experience designing and evolving distributed systems that manage highly connected datasets at very large scale, where query performance, consistency, and reliability are critical.Experience applying version-control concepts such as branching, commits, conflict resolution, and rollback to large-scale, non-code data assets.Experience building or operating rule-based validation and quality frameworks that treat data-correctness checks similarly to automated test suites.Experience leading migrations from legacy monolithic or relational architectures, including stored-procedure-heavy database environments, to modern distributed and cloud-native data platforms.Experience working with geospatial data structures and algorithms, including topology, spatial indexing, spatial joins, and large-scale geometry processing.Deep understanding of APIs, system integration, data contracts, and event-driven architectures that enable interoperability across multiple teams and platforms.Experience influencing technical strategy and building alignment across engineering organizations and stakeholders.Strong communication skills, with the ability to translate complex technical challenges into clear engineering and business outcomes.Hands-on experience with big-data processing frameworks and table formats that support time travel or versioned datasets on AWS or comparable cloud platforms. Experience with some of the following technologies would be valuable: Java 21 or later, Scala, or Python.Apache Spark, Apache Sedona, Apache Iceberg, or comparable technologies.AWS services such as Amazon S3, AWS Lambda, Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL, and Amazon EMR.Data lakes, GIS, geometry processing, distributed systems, and highly scalable data platforms. We also welcome experience from adjacent domains involving large-scale data platforms, distributed systems, geospatial technologies, or other complex and data-intensive environments. You do not need to have worked with every technology listed to be considered for this opportunity. What Do We Offer? At HERE, you will have the opportunity to help shape technology that powers industries worldwide, from automotive and logistics to mobility and location intelligence. You Will Benefit From Challenging and meaningful technical problems with global impact.Opportunities to influence strategic platform decisions and engineering direction.Collaboration with experienced engineers, architects, product leaders, and technology specialists.A culture that supports continuous learning, innovation, professional development, and career growth.Flexible ways of working that support work-life balance.Regular feedback and opportunities to expand your technical leadership.An inclusive and collaborative environment in which diverse perspectives are valued.The opportunity to build technology used by millions of people every day. HERE Technologies is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, or disability. Who are we? HERE Technologies is a location data and technology platform company. We empower our customers to achieve better outcomes – from helping a city manage its infrastructure or a business optimize its assets to guiding drivers to their destination safely. At HERE we take it upon ourselves to be the change we wish to see. We create solutions that fuel innovation, provide opportunity and foster inclusion to improve people’s lives. If you are inspired by an open world and driven to create positive change, join us. Learn more about us on our YouTube Channel.