Principal Software Engineer
Red Hat
Software Engineering
Pune, Maharashtra, India
About the Job
At Red Hat, we don’t just build software; we build ecosystems. The PartNex team sits at the critical intersection of Red Hat’s internal product engineering and our global partner portfolio. We bridge the gap. Our mission is to ensure that every partner solution from AI and Telco to Cloud and Hardware is not just compatible, but integrated, supported, and optimized. We verify the interoperability of the world’s most critical technology solutions on Red Hat platforms, ensuring they are validated, certified, and ready for the enterprise. When a customer or an end user runs a partner's product on Red Hat, it carries a badge of integrity that PartNex helps define.
As a Principal Partner Solutions Engineer - Red Hat Platforms (Principal Software Engineer), you will be central to this effort. You will leverage deep technical expertise to diagnose and resolve complex architectural challenges across a massive partner landscape. This role requires a unique blend of Platform Strategy, Emerging Tech Solutions, and Ecosystem Integrity to ensure our stack spanning RHEL, OpenShift, Red Hat AI, and Ansible, remains the industry standard. When a partner certifies and validates on Red Hat platforms, together we ensure their solutions are consistent, interoperable, and supported so customers can deploy with confidence.
What will you do
Architectural Troubleshooting: Be accountable and responsible for diagnosing and resolving high-impact technical issues across Red Hat AI, OpenShift, and RHEL, including specialized layers like CSI, CNI, and CNF.
Ecosystem Integrity: Drive technical discussions and troubleshoot intricate partner certification submissions to maintain the security and stability of the ecosystem.
Next-Gen Tooling & Agentic SDLC: Contribute to the design and enhancement of validation tools, specifically exploring Agentic SDLC workflows to automate and scale ecosystem integrity as well as internal processes to list the partner on the catalog faster.
Strategic Stakeholder Management: Act as a technical liaison for key decision-makers at partner organizations, managing escalations and providing concise technical briefs to leadership.
Cross-Functional Leadership: Partner internally with Level 2-3 Product Support, various Engineering teams, Tech Sales, Solution Architecture, and Product management teams to bridge the gap between partner needs and product roadmaps.
Mentorship: Elevate the team’s technical bar by mentoring junior engineers and fostering a culture of continuous learning.
What will you bring
Experience: 10+ years in Software Engineering, focusing on platform verification, validation, or reliability engineering.
Linux & Cloud-Native Mastery: Expert-level proficiency in Linux environments and a deep understanding of Kubernetes and containerization architectures.
AI/ML Fluency: Strong use experience of Generative AI, RAG, LLMs, and AI/ML frameworks.
Frontline Expertise: Experience working on the frontline with customers or partners on pre-production and production infrastructure or applications.
Technical Advocacy: Leading the internal process optimization, ongoing business continuity and efficiency improvements, technical elevation for each engineer, closed loop and feedback integration into regular team connections, and constantly striving to find avenues within various open-source ecosystems to inject the business value and enterprise trust for customers and partners.
Modern DevOps: Advanced experience with CI/CD ecosystems (Konflux, Tekton, Jenkins, GitLab) and enterprise issue-tracking via Jira.
Analytical Rigor: A proven track record of debugging complex, distributed systems and solving non-trivial technical bottlenecks.
Nice to have
Advanced proficiency in Python or Golang.
Deep background in Virtualization and software-defined storage.
Direct experience with a Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) principles.
Existing knowledge of Red Hat’s product portfolio and certification workflows.
Security-First Mindset with robust understanding of vulnerability management, CVE grading, and proactive mitigation strategies.
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About Red Hat
Red Hat is the world’s leading provider of enterprise open source software solutions, using a community-powered approach to deliver high-performing Linux, cloud, container, and Kubernetes technologies. Spread across 40+ countries, our associates work flexibly across work environments, from in-office, to office-flex, to fully remote, depending on the requirements of their role. Red Hatters are encouraged to bring their best ideas, no matter their title or tenure. We're a leader in open source because of our open and inclusive environment. We hire creative, passionate people ready to contribute their ideas, help solve complex problems, and make an impact.
Inclusion at Red Hat
Red Hat’s culture is built on the open source principles of transparency, collaboration, and inclusion, where the best ideas can come from anywhere and anyone. When this is realized, it empowers people from different backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences to come together to share ideas, challenge the status quo, and drive innovation. Our aspiration is that everyone experiences this culture with equal opportunity and access, and that all voices are not only heard but also celebrated. We hope you will join our celebration, and we welcome and encourage applicants from all the beautiful dimensions that compose our global village.
Equal Opportunity Policy (EEO)
Red Hat is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and an affirmative action employer. We review applications for employment without regard to their race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, age, veteran status, genetic information, physical or mental disability, medical condition, marital status, or any other basis prohibited by law.