Principal Engineer, Hashicorp Integrations

Principal Engineer Role

A career in IBM Software means you'll be part of a team that transforms our customer's challenges into industry-leading solutions. We are an infinitely curious team, always seeking new possibilities, and dedicated to creating the world's leading AI-powered, cloud-native software solutions. Our renowned legacy creates endless global opportunities for our network of IBMers. We are a team of deep product experts, ensuring exceptional client experiences, with a focus on delivery, excellence, and obsession over customer outcomes. This position involves contributing to HashiCorp's offerings, now part of IBM, which empower organizations to automate and secure multi-cloud and hybrid environments. You will join a team managing the lifecycle of infrastructure and security, enhancing IBM's cloud solutions to ensure enterprises achieve efficiency, security, and scalability in their cloud journey.

Team: Infrastructure Product Group Engineering (AKA Infrastructure Lifecycle Management Eng)

Role Summary: We are seeking a Principal Engineer to lead the technical strategy for two critical initiatives that will define the future of Terraform: Agentic Resource Management and Accelerated Terraform Providers. In this high-leverage role, you will architect the "connective tissue" that allows AI agents to orchestrate the Terraform golden workflow—driving usage, retention, and commercial differentiation. You will look beyond simple code generation to build systems where agents can actively manage resources, automate provider updates, and remediate infrastructure incidents.

As a Principal Engineer at HashiCorp, you will operate as a force multiplier. You will not just build features but will act as a Sponsor for strategic programs, a Catalyst for experimental agentic workflows, and a Guide for the engineering team delivering these capabilities.

Team Overview: You will be the technical anchor for a team dedicated to accelerating AI workflows within IPG Org. This team is tasked to deliver impactful, commercially relevant features. The team's dual mandate is:

• Agentic Resource Management: Enabling partners (via Integrations SDK) and AI agents (via MCP Server) to orchestrate Terraform runs, plan analysis, and error remediation
• Accelerated Terraform Providers: Building automation into the provider ecosystem to rapidly expand coverage for new Terraform features like Search & Actions

Key Responsibilities: Using HashiCorp's Principal Engineer Engagement Framework, you will adopt dynamic roles to ensure the success of these initiatives:

• As a Sponsor (Strategic Leadership):
• Drive the Agentic Resource Management Program: Lead the technical strategy for enabling "Code-to-Cloud" workflows where agents can fully manage the Infrastructure Lifecycle Management (ILM) workflow
• Define the "Golden Workflow" for Agents: Architect how AI agents interact with Terraform Core and HCP Terraform.
• Ensure Commercial Alignment: Oversee the delivery of commercial MCP features, ensuring they align with strategic pillars like "Realize Customer Value" and "Drive Commercial Differentiation"
• As a Catalyst (Innovation Driver):
• Prototype "Accelerated Provider" Agents: Build the initial proofs-of-concept for agents that can automatically key capabilities to support existing Terraform Providers (AWS, Azure, Google, OCI etc).
• Kickstart Patch Management Workflows: creating the first "GitOps remediation" workflows where agents detect drift or errors and automatically generate patch pull requests
• Validate Upgrade Assistants: Lead the technical exploration of AI-driven Terraform Version and Module upgrades to unburden customers from maintenance toil.
• As a Guide (Technical Authority):
• Architect the Commercial MCP Server: Provide deep oversight for the Terraform Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, ensuring it supports complex use cases like remote execution, account onboarding, and operational insights.
• Mentor the Team: Guide the engineers on the team through the complexities of building reliable "Plan Analyzers" and "Error Analyzers" that customers can trust
• Standardize Agent Patterns: Define the patterns for how our tools expose Prompts, Resources, and Tools to ecosystem partners like Azure Copilot, Amazon Q, and GitHub Copilot etc.

Required technical and professional expertise:

• Principal-Level Leadership: Ability to navigate ambiguity and switch contexts between high-level strategy (Sponsor) and hands-on prototyping (Catalyst)
• AI & Agentic Architecture: Experience designing systems where AI agents act as autonomous operators (planning, applying, remediating) rather than just chat assistants
• Deep Terraform Ecosystem Knowledge: Understanding of the Terraform Provider SDK and internal architecture is critical for the "Accelerated Providers" initiative
• Standards & Protocols: Familiarity with the Model Context Protocol (MCP) and experience building tool-use interfaces for LLMs
• Strategic Communication: Capable of authoring RFCs and influencing cross-functional stakeholders to secure alignment on AI strategies.

Preferred technical and professional experience:

• Familiarity with HashiCorp/IBM Products and Services

IBM is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an equal-opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, caste, genetics, pregnancy, disability, neurodivergence, age, veteran status, or other characteristics. IBM is also committed to compliance with all fair employment practices regarding citizenship and immigration status.