Principal Software Test Engineer - Solution Engineering – Customer Solution Validation

Work arrangement

• The role is hybrid and requires working from an HPE office an average of two days per week.
• The posting identifies Sunnyvale, California as the hybrid location.

Role overview

Solution validation and customer engagement

• Understand customer deployments, business requirements, architectures, and large-scale operational environments to develop validation strategies.
• Lead validation of customer solutions and complex networking deployments; collaborate with customers and field, architecture, sales, and services teams.
• Participate in design workshops, architecture reviews, and strategic planning to improve reliability, scalability, observability, and serviceability.
• Translate customer requirements into repeatable validation frameworks; present technical findings, risk assessments, recommendations, and executive updates.

Automation and quality engineering

• Drive automation strategy and build scalable frameworks for functional, integration, system, resiliency, scale, performance, and solution validation.
• Establish continuous-validation practices in CI/CD and advance automation infrastructure, tooling, and AI-assisted engineering.
• Promote organization-wide quality engineering, simplify validation workflows, and reduce operational costs through automation.

Testing and technical leadership

• Validate distributed, multi-component software and networking platforms at scale; use telemetry and diagnostics to troubleshoot failures.
• Lead root-cause investigations, distinguish product defects from infrastructure or environmental issues, and influence designs for testability and diagnosability.
• Lead technical initiatives, align teams around quality objectives, and mentor engineers through reviews, coaching, and knowledge sharing.
• Contribute to patents, publications, standards, architectural proposals, and long-term technical capabilities.

Basic qualifications

• Expert-level Python, Go, or C++ programming, with deep proficiency in at least one language.
• Extensive experience building automation platforms and integrating large-scale automated testing into CI/CD.
• Strong knowledge of Linux/UNIX, networking, processes, memory management, and system internals.
• Experience validating distributed systems, configuring multi-vendor networking, and supporting service-provider, enterprise, and cloud deployments.
• Knowledge of performance testing and traffic-generation platforms such as Ixia and Spirent.
• Expertise in system and end-to-end testing, including resiliency, interoperability, scale, performance, fault injection, and recovery.
• Demonstrated technical impact, ability to influence engineering direction, and experience mentoring and contributing across teams.

Preferred qualifications

• 12+ years of industry experience; advanced networking knowledge across Layer 2, Layer 3, TCP/IP, routing, MPLS, EVPN, and data center technologies.
• Experience with network operating systems, cloud infrastructure, observability platforms, or distributed architectures; working knowledge of JUNOS.
• JNCIA, CCIA, or equivalent certification; experience using AI-assisted engineering tools; record of patents, publications, standards contributions, or architectural leadership.

Compensation

• Expected annual base salary in California is USD 172,000–349,000; actual offers may vary based on location, experience, education, training, and skills.
• Variable incentives may also be offered.