Senior Principal Engineering Manager / Head of Engineering
Atlassian
Listing collected from Atlassian's career site. NextChapter is independent of Atlassian.
Seattle, WA · $202k–$318k a year · Posted November 1, 2026
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Where Seattle, WA ranks
Where Seattle, WA placed in our monthly rankings, month by month. Each month stays online at its own address.
November 2026
- #1Cities with the most jobs that do not need a four-year degree in the Pacific Northwest316 jobs · of 8
- #1Best cities for software and engineering jobs in the Pacific Northwest1,776 openings · of 14
- #2Best cities for energy and utilities pay after cost of living$180k · of 18
- #2Best cities for entry-level jobs that want AI skills in the Pacific Northwest17% · of 12
- #2Best cities for AI-skill jobs in the Pacific Northwest26% · of 17
- #2Best cities for software and engineering jobs in the West Coast1,776 openings · of 60
Rankings about engineering jobs
- Best cities for software and engineering jobs #1 San Francisco (3,412 openings)
- Best cities for engineering pay after cost of living #1 San Mateo ($216k)
- Most requested AI skills in engineering jobs #1 AI tools in daily work (6.1%)
- AI tools named most often in engineering jobs #1 Claude (1.7%)
- Employers with the most engineering jobs #1 Amazon (2,992 roles)
How AI is used in this kind of work
AI use among architectural and engineering managers is little observed so far. Measured exposure for architectural and engineering managers: 3% (little observed).
Share of this job’s tasks that AI is already used for at work, from real usage. It is not a forecast of job loss, and a low number means no use seen yet. Source: Anthropic Economic Index.
Atlassian has filed one layoff notice in the last twelve months, covering 63 workers, most recently March 2026. These are public filings with state labor departments, and an open role can sit alongside them. See the filings
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About the job
Overview
Working at Atlassian
Atlassians can choose where they work – whether in an office, from home, or a combination of the two. That way, Atlassians have more control over supporting their family, personal goals, and other priorities. We can hire people in any country where we have a legal entity.
Responsibilities
We are seeking a Senior Principal Engineering Manager / Head of Engineering (M70) to lead the Atlassian Guard engineering organization. Atlassian Guard is our enterprise-grade security product that helps organizations protect their critical data across the Atlassian cloud ecosystem — delivering capabilities such as data loss prevention, threat detection, identity & access management, audit logging, and security policy enforcement.
In this role, you will own the engineering strategy, team health, and delivery excellence for Atlassian Guard. You will lead multiple engineering teams, partner closely with Product, Design, and Go-to-Market stakeholders, and be accountable for building a world-class security product that scales to serve hundreds of thousands of enterprise customers.
Responsibilities
Engineering Leadership & People Management
Lead and scale a multi-team engineering organization (managers of managers), including hiring, retention, performance management, and organizational design.
Build a high-performance culture rooted in psychological safety, accountability, and continuous improvement.
Develop engineering leaders — coach and mentor engineering managers and senior ICs to grow in their careers and impact.
Champion engineering excellence across the organization through best practices in architecture, reliability, security, and operational readiness.
Strategy & Vision
Define and own the engineering vision and technical strategy for Atlassian Guard, ensuring alignment with Atlassian's broader platform and security strategy.
Partner with Product Management and Design to shape the multi-year product roadmap, making informed trade-offs between customer value, technical investment, and operational sustainability.
Drive innovation in cloud security — staying ahead of evolving threat landscapes, compliance requirements (SOC2, ISO 27001, FedRAMP, etc.), and industry trends.
Execution & Delivery
Be accountable for delivery of complex, multi-quarter programs across multiple teams, ensuring predictability, quality, and customer impact.
Establish and track key engineering metrics (velocity, reliability, quality, team health) to drive data-informed decisions.
Own operational excellence — ensure Atlassian Guard meets the highest standards of availability, performance, and incident response.
Cross-Functional & Organizational Influence
Collaborate across Atlassian with peer engineering leaders, platform teams, security teams, and executive stakeholders to drive alignment and remove blockers.
Represent Atlassian Guard in senior leadership forums, contributing to company-wide engineering strategy and investment decisions.
Partner with Go-to-Market teams (Sales, Customer Success, Solutions Engineering) to ensure the product meets enterprise customer needs and supports business growth.
Qualifications
15+ years of experience in software engineering, with 7+ years in engineering management , including experience as a manager of managers leading multi-team organizations.
Proven track record of building, scaling, and leading high-performing engineering teams (50+ engineers preferred) in a fast-paced SaaS/cloud environment.
Deep understanding of cloud security domains — identity & access management, data protection, threat detection, compliance, or related areas.
Strong technical acumen — ability to engage meaningfully in architectural decisions, system design, and technical trade-offs even as a senior leader.
Experience delivering enterprise-grade products with high reliability and scale requirements.
Exceptional communication and influence skills — comfortable presenting to executives, partnering with cross-functional leaders, and inspiring large teams.
Demonstrated ability to think strategically while maintaining a strong bias for action and execution.
Experience operating in agile/lean environments and driving continuous improvement in engineering processes.
Compensation
At Atlassian, we strive to design equitable, explainable, and competitive compensation programs. We follow consistent hiring practices and account for each candidate's skills, knowledge, and experience when setting base pay within the range.
Please visit go.atlassian.com/payzones for more information on which locations are included in each of our geographic pay zones. However, please confirm the zone for your specific location with your recruiter.
This role may also be eligible for benefits, bonuses, commissions, and equity.
Pay Ranges
In The United States , we have three geographic pay zones. For this role, our current base pay ranges for new hires in each zone are:
Zone A : $243,900 - $318,425
Zone B : $219,510 - $286,583
Zone C : $202,437 - $264,293
Qualifications
Benefits & Perks
Atlassian offers a wide range of perks and benefits designed to support you, your family and to help you engage with your local community. Our offerings include health and wellbeing resources, paid volunteer days, and so much more. To learn more, visit go.atlassian.com/perksandbenefits .
About Atlassian
At Atlassian, we're motivated by a common goal: to unleash the potential of every team. Our software products help teams all over the planet and our solutions are designed for all types of work. Team collaboration through our tools makes what may be impossible alone, possible together.
We believe that the unique contributions of all Atlassians create our success. To ensure that our products and culture continue to incorporate everyone's perspectives and experience, we never discriminate based on race, religion, national origin, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, or marital, veteran, or disability status. All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.
To provide you the best experience, we can support with accommodations or adjustments at any stage of the recruitment process. Simply inform our Recruitment team during your conversation with them.
To learn more about our culture and hiring process, visit go.atlassian.com/crh .
In line with local law, identity verification (which may include use of biometric data) is a condition of employment with Atlassian for employment fraud purposes.