Principal Engineer – Performance and Reliability
Henry Schein
full-time
Posted on:
Location Type: Hybrid
Location: Albany • New Zealand
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Job Level
About the role
- Lead platform-wide efforts to improve system stability, performance, telemetry, and operational visibility.
- Define and evolve Ascend's observability strategy across metrics, logs, traces, alerting, dashboards, and diagnostics.
- Investigate complex system performance issues across services, databases, infrastructure, and integrations.
- Drive a more proactive operating model by identifying risks and bottlenecks before they become customer-facing incidents.
- Partner closely with engineering teams to improve reliability under load and performance in production.
- Establish standards, patterns, and engineering practices for performance testing, instrumentation, and operational readiness.
- Use telemetry and production data to guide prioritisation, root cause analysis, and continuous improvement.
- Support major incident diagnosis where needed, while reducing long-term dependence on reactive firefighting.
- Influence architecture and platform decisions to improve scalability, resilience, and transparency of system behaviour.
- Mentor engineers and technical leaders in performance thinking, observability, and reliability engineering practices.
Requirements
- Proven experience operating at Principal or Staff Engineer level in complex, distributed software environments.
- Deep expertise in observability, telemetry, monitoring, and performance engineering.
- Strong hands-on capability across services, databases, APIs, infrastructure, and production diagnostics.
- Demonstrated ability to identify systemic issues and implement durable engineering improvements.
- Experience improving reliability and performance in growing SaaS or enterprise platforms.
- Strong incident analysis and root cause investigation skills.
- Ability to work cross-functionally and influence multiple teams without direct authority.
- Strong communication skills, with the ability to translate technical risks and trade-offs for engineering and business leaders.
- Track record of balancing strategic leadership with practical delivery and hands-on technical problem solving.
Benefits
- Flexible working arrangements
- Professional development opportunities
Applicant Tracking System Keywords
Tip: use these terms in your resume and cover letter to boost ATS matches.
Hard Skills & Tools
observabilitytelemetrymonitoringperformance engineeringperformance testingroot cause analysisproduction diagnosticsscalabilityreliability engineeringAPI
Soft Skills
communicationmentoringcross-functional collaborationinfluencestrategic leadershipproblem solvingtechnical risk assessmentteamworkincident analysiscontinuous improvement