Career Area:
Engineering
Job Description:
Your Work Shapes the World at Caterpillar Inc.

When you join Caterpillar, you're joining a global team who cares not just about the work we do – but also about each other. We are the makers, problem solvers, and future world builders who are creating stronger, more sustainable communities. We don't just talk about progress and innovation here – we make it happen, with our customers, where we work and live. Together, we are building a better world, so we can all enjoy living in it.

Role Summary
We’re seeking a Principal Software Engineer to build and evolve large-scale, distributed systems that power mission-critical platforms. This is a senior technical leadership role for engineers who thrive on solving hard, ambiguous problems at scale, and who can influence architecture across teams.
You will drive system design, scalability, and engineering excellence, while remaining deeply hands-on in building high-performance backend systems on a contemporary cloud-native stack.
What You’ll Do
Architect and build high-throughput,



low-latency distributed systems using Java and microservices
Lead end-to-end system design across services, data, and platform layers
Design for scale, resilience, fault tolerance, and operability from first principles
Build and operate containerized workloads on Kubernetes (multi-service, production scale)
Define and raise the bar on architecture, APIs, and engineering quality standards
Drive cross-team technical decisions and resolve complex system bottlenecks
Mentor senior engineers and act as a technical multiplier across teams
Influence platform roadmap, modernization, and developer productivity

Basic Qualifications
12+ years of experience building and operating backend systems at scale
Solid expertise in Java, Spring Boot, Microservices, Distributed Systems
Proven experience designing highly available, large-scale systems (traffic, data, or compute)
Hands-on with Kubernetes and Doc

📌 Principal Software Engineer – Distributed Systems Chennai
🏢 Caterpillar
📍 Chennai