Senior Staff Software Engineer, Distributed Systems (Platform & Infrastructure)

Job Description

Senior Staff Software Engineer, Distributed Systems (Platform & Infrastructure)

Are you an exceptional and highly experienced Staff Software Engineer with a passion for designing, building, and scaling cutting-edge distributed systems? We are seeking a visionary technical leader to join our core Platform & Infrastructure team. In this pivotal role, you will be responsible for defining the architectural roadmap, leading complex engineering initiatives, and driving the technical excellence of our critical backend services that power our global operations and deliver unparalleled experiences to our users. If you thrive on solving the hardest problems in distributed computing, mentoring high-performing teams, and making a profound impact on a rapidly evolving platform, this is your opportunity.

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Key Responsibilities:

• Architect & Design Leadership: Lead the end-to-end design and architectural evolution of highly scalable, fault-tolerant, and secure distributed systems. This includes defining service boundaries, API contracts, data models, and system interactions for mission-critical components.
• Technical Strategy & Roadmapping: Define and drive the long-term technical strategy and roadmap for core platform infrastructure, aligning with company-wide objectives and anticipating future technical needs.
• Hands-on Development: Architect and implement complex software solutions, writing clean, efficient, and well-tested code in high-performance languages (e.g., Go, Java, Rust, C++). Lead by example through significant code contributions.
• Performance & Reliability Engineering: Own the performance, reliability, and observability of our distributed systems. Proactively identify and resolve complex bottlenecks, implement robust monitoring and alerting, and establish SLOs/SLIs.
• Mentorship & Technical Guidance: Provide expert technical guidance and mentorship to engineering teams across the organization. Foster a culture of technical excellence, continuous learning, and best practices in distributed systems design and development.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner closely with Product Management, DevOps, Security, and other engineering teams to translate business requirements into technical solutions and ensure seamless integration across our ecosystem.
• Innovation & Research: Evaluate, prototype, and advocate for the adoption of new technologies, frameworks, and methodologies that can significantly improve our platform’s capabilities, efficiency, and developer experience.
• Incident Management & Post-mortems: Act as an escalation point for critical production incidents, lead root cause analysis, and drive corrective actions to prevent recurrence.

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What You’ll Bring (Required Qualifications):

• 8+ years of progressive experience in software engineering, with at least 3+ years in a Staff, Principal, or equivalent technical leadership role specifically focused on distributed systems.
• Deep expertise in the design, development, and operation of large-scale, high-availability, and low-latency distributed systems using modern programming languages (e.g., Go, Java, Rust).
• Profound understanding of distributed systems fundamentals: consistency models (CAP theorem, Paxos, Raft), concurrency, fault tolerance, message passing, and network protocols.
• Extensive hands-on experience with cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, GCP, Azure) and cloud-native architectures, including serverless, containerization (Docker, Kubernetes), and microservices.
• Expertise in various database technologies, including highly scalable NoSQL stores (e.g., Cassandra, DynamoDB, MongoDB) and relational databases (e.g., PostgreSQL).
• Strong command of message queuing and streaming platforms (e.g., Kafka, RabbitMQ, SQS/SNS) and event-driven architectures.
• Demonstrated experience in designing and evolving robust and secure API services (REST, gRPC).
• Exceptional problem-solving, analytical, and critical thinking skills, with a track record of tackling highly ambiguous and complex technical challenges.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to articulate complex technical concepts, influence stakeholders, and drive consensus across diverse technical and non-technical audiences.
• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.

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Bonus Points (Preferred Qualifications):

• Experience contributing to or leading significant open-source projects related to distributed systems or infrastructure.
• Deep understanding of security principles for distributed systems and experience implementing secure coding practices.
• Familiarity with advanced networking concepts, service mesh technologies (e.g., Istio, Linkerd), and API gateways.
• Proven ability to drive architectural decisions that significantly improve developer productivity and system maintainability.
• Prior experience in a high-growth, fast-paced technology company with a global user base.

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Why You’ll Love This Role:

• Shape the Future: Lead critical technical initiatives that define the future of our platform and directly impact millions of users.
• Unparalleled Impact: Your work will be at the core of our technical stack, enabling innovation across all product areas.
• Technical Challenge: Solve complex, fascinating problems in distributed computing at an immense scale.
• Growth & Influence: Opportunity to mentor, inspire, and elevate engineering talent across the organization.
• Collaborative Culture: Work with a brilliant, passionate, and supportive team in an environment that values innovation, ownership, and technical excellence.