Software Engineer, Distributed Systems (Core)

About The Role

We are hiring senior distributed systems engineers to join our Core Team, the group responsible for the scheduling, planning, and execution of all data syncs across the platform. This team builds the systems that power real‑time and batch data movement for thousands of global customers.

This is a high‑impact, high‑ownership role where you will design and operate systems that move terabytes of data per day, support millions of low‑latency API calls, and run across a multi‑cloud, multi‑region infrastructure.

We maintain an unusually stable, calm engineering environment for a company at our scale. We hire extremely strong engineers, give them autonomy, and avoid unnecessary process. The result: high velocity, high trust, and genuinely healthy work‑life balance.

What You'll Work On

Sync Speed Optimization

Analyze and optimize every stage of the syncing pipeline to push throughput and latency to new limits.

Streaming Syncing

Extend the batch‑only model to support real‑time streaming sources such as webhooks, queues, and Kafka.

Scalability & Reliability

Architect for the next order of magnitude of growth across data volume, concurrency, and global footprint.

Low‑Latency Personalization API

Enhance a caching layer that delivers responses at millions of QPS.

Multi‑Region & Multi‑Cloud Expansion

Support and expand a multi‑cloud backend, including launching new regions to meet global data residency requirements.

Why This Role Is Unique

• You will own systems that other engineering teams and customers rely on.
• You will work extremely close to the infrastructure layer, understanding how tools like Kafka, Spark, Flink, and Kubernetes behave under real load.
• You will have massive autonomy: minimal meetings, flexible hours, and the ability to work from anywhere in North America.
• You will join a team of deeply technical, passionate engineers who care about correctness and craftsmanship.
  
  
  

Required

What We're Looking For

• 7 years of backend or distributed systems engineering experience
• Strong systems design fundamentals (ideally from a top 30 CS program)
• Experience owning systems that scaled by orders of magnitude
• Experience with high‑scale systems:
• Kafka or other message queues
• Kubernetes, Docker
• Large SQL/OLAP systems
• Event collection or streaming pipelines
  
• Experience building or owning systems that move terabytes of data per day
• Experience building 01 systems, not just maintaining existing ones
• Exceptional communication and first‑principles reasoning
  
  

Nice to Have

• Experience at a high‑growth startup (Series B–E)
• Experience with multi‑cloud or multi‑region architectures
• Experience building syncing engines, schedulers, or distributed execution frameworks
  
  
  

Day‑to‑Day

• :3 team meetings per week
• No micromanagement, no busywork, no unnecessary process
• Flexible hours — many engineers work non‑traditional schedules
• High‑quality engineering over rushed engineering
• Direct collaboration with senior engineers and leadership
• Almost no after‑hours paging
  
  
  

Compensation & Benefits

• $180K–$320K salary
• Competitive equity
• Full benefits
• Visa sponsorship available
• Remote‑first across US & Canada
  
  
  

Who Thrives Here

You're someone who:

• Loves hard distributed systems problems
• Has strong architectural instincts
• Has built systems that broke, scaled, and broke again
• Wants autonomy and ownership
• Wants a startup environment without the chaos