Software Principal Engineer - System Test & Customer Solutions Validation

Principal Software Engineer – System Test & Customer Solutions Validation (SONiC AI & Enterprise Networking)

Infrastructure Solutions Group (ISG) builds the products that power infrastructure, solutions, and data management our customers need most. Our teams design and develop the hardware and software that connect infrastructure, accelerate computational workloads, integrate across the stack, protect data continuity, and deliver the platforms, applications, and diagnostics our customers rely on every day at enterprise scale.

Some product builders follow the rules. Ours rewrite them.

Within ISG, innovation isn't just about creating new technology- it's about challenging assumptions and reimagining how work gets done. Engineers define intent, author precise specifications, and orchestrate AI agents that execute at speed and scale. AI is embedded throughout our development process, helping us move faster, learn quicker, and deliver greater impact. Yet the most important contribution remains uniquely human: deciding what to build, designing how it should work, and applying the judgment needed to earn our customers' trust. When your products power critical infrastructure around the world, that responsibility matters.

We move quickly toward the work that matters most. We reward experimentation, encourage bold thinking, and remove unnecessary barriers so great ideas can become reality faster. Our teams embrace a customer-first, first-to-market mindset, transforming rapid feedback into better products and better outcomes. We aren't looking for people who are content with the status quo- we look for builders who question it, improve it, and occasionally rewrite it.

If you're energized by solving complex systems challenges, excited to work alongside AI to amplify your impact, and motivated by the opportunity to shape what's next instead of simply maintaining what's been done before, you'll find your place here.

Join us and help build the future of enterprise technology.

What you’ll achieve

As a Principal Software Engineer, you will be responsible for enabling customer adoption of SONiC-based AI and enterprise networking solutions, from POCs and deployment validation to complex escalations. You will work with customers, support, pre-sales, solution architects, and engineering teams on fabric orchestration, deployment readiness, and resolution of customer issues. As a successful candidate, you will be a technically savvy, customer-focused engineer who bridges customers and engineering, resolves critical issues, and accelerates adoption of reliable, scalable, customer-ready SONiC-based networking and AI fabric solutions.

You will:

• Serve as the first line of escalation into engineering for support and pre-sales, troubleshooting customer issues and driving workarounds and planned resolutions.

• Define and drive system-level validation strategies for complex SONiC-based AI and enterprise networking solutions, aligned with spec-driven and test-driven development (SDD/TDD), validating customer use cases, POCs, and end-to-end workflows across network infrastructure, fabric orchestration, servers, storage, and telemetry.

• Investigate complex customer-reported issues across SONiC software, networking protocols, platform components, and orchestration systems, including link-level errors and retransmit behavior, closing field escapes through triage, debugging, and closure.

• Provide technical leadership across customer engineering, system test, product management, and software development organizations.

• Drive architectural reviews, identify solution gaps, and influence product engineering roadmaps based on customer deployment requirements, translating customer feedback and field learnings into engineering improvements using Python, SpyTest automation, and AI agents that improve execution efficiency, impact, and value.

Take the first step towards your dream career

Every Dell Technologies team member brings something unique to the table. Here’s what we are looking for with this role:

Essential Requirements

• Customer and solution experience: working with customers, solution architects, support, and engineering teams on POCs, deployments, and escalations, and system testing complex AI, data center, and enterprise networks, including scale-up, scale-across, scale-out, rack-scale, and fabric-scale environments.

• Networking technologies: VXLAN-EVPN, MLAG, EVPN-MH, ECMP, VRF, BGP, OSPF, IS-IS, SRv6, BFD, Layer 2, multicast, RoCE, QoS, DCB (PFC/ECN), lossless Ethernet, link-level retransmission, and enterprise services (DHCP, DNS, NTP, LDAP, RADIUS, TACACS+, 802.1X).

• Integrated solutions: validation of networking, compute, storage, GPU cluster, and fabric orchestration solutions, including Ansible, Kubernetes integrations, and lifecycle workflows.

• Automation and telemetry: strong Python and test automation skills, with telemetry and northbound interfaces (CLI, REST, gNMI, NETCONF/YANG), traffic generator testing (for example IXIA), and packet analysis.

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Engineering in CSE, ECE, EEE, IT, Computer Networks, Cloud Computing, or equivalent.

Desirable Requirements

• Experience with SONiC and SpyTest, network test automation, deployment validation, and customer-focused solution demonstrations.

• Experience building or using AI agents and AI-assisted workflows (AI models and tools, for example Claude, Devin, GitHub Copilot) for troubleshooting, solution analysis, automation, and customer issue investigation.

Who we are

We believe that each of us has the power to make an impact. That’s why we put our team members at the center of everything we do. If you’re looking for an opportunity to grow your career with some of the best minds and most advanced tech in the industry, we’re looking for you.

Dell Technologies is a unique family of businesses that helps individuals and organizations transform how they work, live and play. Join us to build a future that works for everyone because Progress Takes All of Us.

Dell Technologies is committed to the principle of equal employment opportunity for all employees and to providing employees with a work environment free of discrimination and harassment. Read the full Equal Employment Opportunity Policy here .