Principal Backend Engineer

Job Description:

Principal Backend Software Engineer

Collaborate with Innovative 3Mers Around the World

Choosing where to start and grow your career has a major impact on your professional and personal life, so it’s equally important you know that the company that you choose to work at, and its leaders, will support and guide you. With a wide variety of people, global locations, technologies and products, 3M is a place where you can collaborate with other curious, creative 3Mers.

This position provides an opportunity to transition from other private, public, government or military experience to a 3M career.

The Impact You’ll Make in this Role

3M is seeking a Principal Backend Software Engineer to join the Corporate Research Digital Lab (CRDL) to develop and support scalable, distributed applications built on cloud technologies. As part of an agile team, you will enable applications in diverse markets including energy, manufacturing, personal safety, transportation, electronics, and consumer.

As a Principal Backend Software Engineer, you will have the opportunity for designing, developing, and maintaining the backend solutions that support our R&D Enterprise and Departmental platforms and applications to ensure seamless integration, robust backend services, and a secure, highly-available backend environment.  In this role you will:

• Lead the architectural design and implementation of scalable, efficient, and fault-tolerant backend services.
• Architect, design, and develop robust microservices and APIs to support software activities.
• Continuously monitor and optimize backend services for performance, scalability, and cost-effectiveness.
• Implement robust monitoring and alerting and ensure backend services adhere to the highest security standards
• Collaborate with and across agile teams to design, develop, test, implement, and support platform solutions and technologies in a matrixed organization.
• Design and force best practices for software development, code quality and standards, testing strategies, system architecture, and to ensure the delivery of high-quality, well-documented, maintainable code.
• Mentor and guide junior engineers, fostering collaboration and conducting code reviews
• Deliver technical presentations and demonstrations to stakeholders, team members, and leadership, effectively communicating complex architectural concepts and implementation strategies.
• Research and explore new technologies and methodologies to drive continuous improvement and evolution of our tech stack

Your Skills and Expertise  

To set you up for success in this role from day one, 3M requires (at a minimum) the following qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree or higher in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field from an accredited university (completed and verified prior to start).
• Twelve (12) years of professional backend software engineering experience in a private, public, government or military environment
• Proven expertise in backend frameworks and languages with five (5) or more years experience with some or all of the following (such as TypeScript, Node.js, Express, Python, JavaScript/EMCAScript, Unix Shell Scripting, React, and ASP.NET)
• Five (5) years of experience designing and implementing microservices architectures
• Three (3) years of experience deploying and managing scalable, containerized applications in Kubernetes.
• Five (5) years of hands-on experience with AWS Cloud Services (or GCP, Azure), including Lambda, EKS, ECS, S3, MSK, IAM, AppSync, CloudTrail
• Five (5) years of experience designing, developing, and maintaining scalable RESTful and/or GraphQL APIs
• Proficient CI/CD expertise and hands-on experience with tools like Jenkins, CodeBuild, or GitHub Actions

Additional qualifications that could help you succeed even further in this role include:

• Strong knowledge of OAuth, OIDC (JWT, PKCE, M2M), LDAP, AWS IAM, and identity management protocols.
• Hands-on experience with Temporal.io or Airflow for workflow orchestration.
• Hands-on experience with relational SQL (Postgres) and NoSQL (DynamoDB) databases.
• Experience with observability and monitoring using CloudWatch, Prometheus, and ELK Stack.
• Strong experience with Testing Frameworks and tools (Jest, ViTest, LoadRunner, ts-rest, Zod)
• Experience with GraphQL, gRPC
• Experience integrating. GenAi/LLM driven features into backend systems using APIs and vector stores, in collaboration with Data/ML teams.
• Familiarity with data mesh concepts and principles.
• Good experience with agile development processes and concepts with leveraging project management tools like JIRA and Confluence.
• Strong leadership and mentorship abilities.
• Exceptional communication and collaboration skills.

Location:

• Hybrid to Maplewood, MN preferred, remote possible within the United States

Travel: May include up to 10% domestic/international

Relocation Assistance: May be authorized

Must be legally authorized to work in country of employment without sponsorship for employment visa status (e.g., H1B status).

 

Supporting Your Well-being 

3M offers many programs to help you live your best life – both physically and financially. To ensure competitive pay and benefits, 3M regularly benchmarks with other companies that are comparable in size and scope. 

 

Chat with Max

For assistance with searching through our current job openings or for more information about all things 3M, visit Max, our virtual recruiting

Applicable to US Applicants Only:The expected compensation range for this position is $188,251 - $230,084, which includes base pay plus variable incentive pay, if eligible. This range represents a good faith estimate for this position. The specific compensation offered to a candidate may vary based on factors including, but not limited to, the candidate’s relevant knowledge, training, skills, work location, and/or experience. In addition, this position may be eligible for a range of benefits (e.g., Medical, Dental & Vision, Health Savings Accounts, Health Care & Dependent Care Flexible Spending Accounts, Disability Benefits, Life Insurance, Voluntary Benefits, Paid Absences and Retirement Benefits, etc.). Additional information is available at: https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/careers-us/working-at-3m/benefits/.

Good Faith Posting Date Range 04/11/2025 To 05/11/2025 Or until filled

All US-based 3M full time employees will need to sign an employee agreement as a condition of employment with 3M. This agreement lays out key terms on using 3M Confidential Information and Trade Secrets. It also has provisions discussing conflicts of interest and how inventions are assigned. Employees that are Job Grade 7 or equivalent and above may also have obligations to not compete against 3M or solicit its employees or customers, both during their employment, and for a period after they leave 3M.

Learn more about 3M’s creative solutions to the world’s problems at www.3M.com or on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn @3M.

Responsibilities of this position include that corporate policies, procedures and security standards are complied with while performing assigned duties.

Pay & Benefits Overview: https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/careers-us/working-at-3m/benefits/

3M is an equal opportunity employer. 3M will not discriminate against any applicant for employment on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, pregnancy, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, or veteran status.

Please note: your application may not be considered if you do not provide your education and work history, either by: 1) uploading a resume, or 2) entering the information into the application fields directly.

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