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Principal Engineer resume keywords

Core keywords are the skill list on the Principal Engineer resume example.

See the matching Principal Engineer resume example. For which applicant tracking systems large employers use, read the State of ATS 2026 report.

Check your Principal Engineer resume

The ATS checker opens with Principal Engineer filled in as the target role, along with the keyword list on this page. Paste your resume there. Free, no signup.

Counted on 2026-10-10 from 71 public job postings whose titles match Principal Engineer. Those postings came from Ashby, Greenhouse, Lever, and SmartRecruiters. A posting is counted for this role when the longest published job-title phrase in its title is Principal Engineer. The crawl queried Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, and SmartRecruiters for 133 employers in the State of ATS 2026 dataset that use those vendors, and for 279 additional public boards from the extended coverage tier. The extended boards are not part of the 738-company statistics. 361 boards returned postings out of 412 boards attempted, and 46923 postings were scanned. HTML was stripped before counting, and each posting counts once per term. Phrases beyond the published skill list are the most common two- and three-word phrases in the matched postings. Posting text is not stored. A role page shows these percentages only when at least 30 descriptions were counted.

Core keywords

These are the terms to put on the resume when they match work you have done.

  • System Architecture

    6% of 71 recent postings mention System Architecture.

  • Technical Leadership

    35% of 71 recent postings mention Technical Leadership.

  • Cross-org Influence

    0% of 71 recent postings mention Cross-org Influence.

  • RFC Process

    0% of 71 recent postings mention RFC Process.

  • Performance

    79% of 71 recent postings mention Performance.

  • Distributed Systems

    45% of 71 recent postings mention Distributed Systems.

  • Mentoring

    18% of 71 recent postings mention Mentoring.

  • Code Review

    6% of 71 recent postings mention Code Review.

  • Technology Evaluation

    0% of 71 recent postings mention Technology Evaluation.

  • Strategic Planning

    1% of 71 recent postings mention Strategic Planning.

Supporting keywords

The skills catalog does not name extra terms for this role. The core list above is the published skill list.

Phrases from recent postings

These phrases showed up often in the matched postings and are not already on the published skill list.

  • principal engineer

    58% of 71 recent postings mention principal engineer.

  • cross functional

    46% of 71 recent postings mention cross functional.

  • long term

    42% of 71 recent postings mention long term.

  • large scale

    39% of 71 recent postings mention large scale.

  • track record

    39% of 71 recent postings mention track record.

  • computer science

    38% of 71 recent postings mention computer science.

  • engineering teams

    30% of 71 recent postings mention engineering teams.

  • genetic information

    25% of 71 recent postings mention genetic information.

  • next generation

    25% of 71 recent postings mention next generation.

  • technical direction

    24% of 71 recent postings mention technical direction.

Where to place them

  1. 1

    Headline

    Put the target title and two core terms on the line under your name: Principal Engineer | System Architecture | Technical Leadership.

  2. 2

    Skills

    List the core terms together in the skills section: System Architecture, Technical Leadership, Cross-org Influence, RFC Process, Performance, Distributed Systems, Mentoring, Code Review, Technology Evaluation, Strategic Planning.

  3. 3

    Experience

    Use System Architecture, Technical Leadership, Cross-org Influence inside bullets for work you did in this role, next to the result.

Sample lines from the resume example

These lines are already published on the Principal Engineer resume example. Use them as a pattern for where a keyword sits next to a result, and replace the details with your own.

  • Set technical direction for 100+ engineer organization defining architecture standards and technology choices
  • Designed event-driven architecture processing 100M+ events daily with 99.99% reliability
  • Led cross-team migration from monolith to microservices reducing deployment cycle from 2 weeks to 2 hours
  • Authored 20+ RFCs adopted as engineering-wide standards improving architectural consistency across teams

Questions about Principal Engineer keywords

What keywords should a Principal Engineer resume include?

Core keywords for a Principal Engineer resume are System Architecture, Technical Leadership, Cross-org Influence, RFC Process, Performance, Distributed Systems, Mentoring, Code Review, Technology Evaluation, Strategic Planning. Core keywords are the skill list on the Principal Engineer resume example. Percentages are the share of 71 public postings fetched on 2026-10-10 whose titles match this role.

Where should Principal Engineer keywords go on a resume?

Headline: Put the target title and two core terms on the line under your name: Principal Engineer | System Architecture | Technical Leadership. Skills: List the core terms together in the skills section: System Architecture, Technical Leadership, Cross-org Influence, RFC Process, Performance, Distributed Systems, Mentoring, Code Review, Technology Evaluation, Strategic Planning. Experience: Use System Architecture, Technical Leadership, Cross-org Influence inside bullets for work you did in this role, next to the result.

How do I check a Principal Engineer resume?

Open the free ATS checker with Principal Engineer prefilled, paste your resume, and compare it with the keyword list on this page.

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