Principal Engineer

At Bluehost, we believe all small businesses deserve the opportunity to succeed online. Our mission is to give small businesses the confidence to think big. We're the all-in-one platform for small businesses to grow online with powerful simplicity, premium performance, smart tools and human support.

Why we're hiring for this role

We're looking for a Principal Engineer to bring deep technical leadership to our Hosting platform at a pivotal moment for the business. This is a high-impact senior individual contributor role for someone who's run large-scale hosting infrastructure end-to-end (Python, Linux, MySQL at scale, Perl, cPanel) and wants to shape architecture, reliability, and SRE practice as Bluehost modernizes and grows.

What You'll Do & How You'll Make Your Mark

• Set technical direction and architecture standards for backend and infrastructure systems across the Hosting org
• Design and evolve large-scale Python backend services running on Linux, backed by MySQL at production scale
• Bring deep, hands-on expertise on Perl-based and cPanel-integrated systems, guiding their modernization without disrupting live customer sites or live provisioning automations
• Drive site reliability engineering practice across Hosting, partnering closely with DevOps and SRE functions on incident response and system hardening
• Own the org-wide standard for AI-augmented delivery: where AI is used across the lifecycle and where it isn't, how generated code is reviewed, how provenance and licensing are handled, and what customer data may enter a prompt — and measure whether the standard is actually holding
• Lead root-cause analysis on the most complex, highest-impact production issues, and turn findings into durable architectural fixes
• Mentor senior and staff-level engineers, raising the technical bar and influencing how the broader org builds and operates
• Partner with engineering leadership to shape multi-quarter technical roadmaps that support Bluehost's growth trajectory

• 10+ years of backend/infrastructure engineering experience, including deep, hands-on hosting-platform expertise
• Expert-level Python and Linux systems knowledge at real production scale
• Strong MySQL expertise, including performance tuning, schema design, and large-scale troubleshooting
• Deep hands-on experience in Perl and cPanel environments, with a track record of modernizing legacy systems without breaking them
• Preferred: strong background in Site Reliability Engineering and infrastructure practice, applying architectural patterns for systemic resilience, fault isolation, and operational governance
• AI-augmented delivery: you use AI across the delivery lifecycle, not just code generation, and can say which models suit which problems and where you don't use them. You have set the org-wide standard for how AI-generated code is reviewed, how provenance and licensing are handled, and what customer data enters a prompt — and you can show how you measured adoption and outcomes against it, including what a security or compliance review will ask for.
• Proven technical leadership: setting direction, mentoring engineers, and influencing decisions across multiple teams
• Excellent judgment operating in complex, high-scale, customer-facing SaaS environments under real business pressure

• Work-life balance. Meaningful work, balanced by a culture that respects your time.
• A culture of belonging. We celebrate what makes each of us different, with 20+ affinity groups connecting employees globally.
• We care about you. Excellent Health, HSA, Dental, Vision, Matching 401K, Life/AD&D/STD/LTD, Tuition Reimbursement, Pet Insurance, and generous PTO.
• Where can we take you? Mentorship, new challenges, and real career growth. Unfold new possibilities #OTOD!

This Job Description includes the essential job functions required to perform the job described above, as well as additional duties and responsibilities. This Job Description is not an exhaustive list of all functions that the employee performing this job may be required to perform. The Company reserves the right to revise the Job Description at any time, and to require the employee to perform functions in addition to those listed above.