Software Engineer, Network & Protocol Team (Washington, D.C.)

Software Engineer (Network & Protocol)Location: Washington, D.C. (HQ2)Team: Engineering • Full‑time • Pre‑seedAbout HoplynkHoplynk is building the communications and networking layer for the intelligent edge, ensuring resilient connectivity for autonomous systems and mission-critical operations in any environment. We’re a pre-seed startup spun out of Stanford University and based in San Francisco, developing an embedded software/firmware stack that delivers multipath, failure-aware networking across heterogeneous links so critical systems stay online when networks don’t.The RoleYou’ll be our first networking specialist and a member of the founding team. Your mission: design, ship, and measure a robust multipath networking protocol on Linux. You’ll write low level kernel and routing policies, aggregate telemetry and interface metrics, and design large scale system tests.What You’ll Do and OwnDesign and implement the multipath routing/transport stack on Linux, including policy engines for path selection, subflow management, and failover.Define and maintain SLOs for latency, loss, failover time, and goodput.Build and optimize telemetry systems on resource constrained devices: per-subflow RTT/RTTVAR, cwnd, loss/reordering, packet sampling, and device-health signals; keep schemas stable as the system grows.Design and run experiments with simulated networks in QEMU.Partner with embedded/firmware on BSP, drivers, OTA updates, and device observability.Support deployments and onboarding: capture traces, triage issues, and harden release processes as we scale customers.What You’ll BringSolid Linux networking experience at L3/L4 with iproute2 / netlink / tc.Familiarity with low level programming languages like C/C and RustA track record of improving latency, reliability, or throughput via shaping, queue management, or congestion control.Comfort with transport and routing protocols such as TCP, UDP, QUIC, MPTCP, MPLS, other routing protocols.Experience building network telemetry (RTT, loss, cwnd, packet sampling) with stable data models.Ability to design experiments, simulate real conditions, and measure results.Clear writing and documentation; ability to mentor and set engineering standards.Nice to HaveRouting & Fast-Path: FRR, Babel, OLSR, batman-adv; frameworks like DPDK; Segment Routing (SR-MPLS/SRv6).Wireless & Cellular Networking: CGNAT, captive portalsEmbedded & Security: OpenWrt, Yocto, Buildroot; OTA frameworks (RAUC/Mender), A/B partitioning, secure boot/firmware signing.Timing & Observability: NTP, PTP, perf, ftrace, pcap, mptcpd, gNMI/streaming telemetry.Hardware & Applied Domains: Schematics interpretation, PHY bring-up testing; robotics/autonomy networks in challenging RF environments.Tools & Tech You’ll TouchLinux 6.x · MPTCP · OpenWrt/Debian/Ubuntu · iproute2/netlink · mptcpd · perf/ftrace · Rust / C / Python (routing and full-stack development)How We Work - Hoplynk’s ValuesWe believe that shared values are the foundation for success. At Hoplynk, we value:Candor: Say the hard thing kindly, early, and with evidence. Speak up during decisions.Humility: Strong opinions, loosely held. Change your mind with facts. Teach and learn in the open; celebrate team wins over heroics.Initiative: Run toward the smoke. Own problems end-to-end. Ship in small, safe steps with clear, observable outcomes.