Principal Engineer, Distributed Systems

Role description

Role Overview

We are looking for a Principal Engineer to provide technical leadership across Security Products. This is a senior individual-contributor role for an engineer who can define architecture, guide execution across multiple teams, and solve complex distributed-systems problems in security-critical infrastructure.

What You Will Do

Establish architectural approaches for distributed systems, drive decisions around consistency models, design for data residency, tenant isolation, and trust boundaries, and define fault-tolerance strategies for dependencies, networks, regions, storage systems, and control-plane components.

Why It Might Be a Fit

Success in this role requires both deep technical judgment and the ability to create alignment, raise engineering standards, and make complex architecture understandable and actionable for others.

Requirements

• 12+ years of experience designing and building production software, including substantial experience with distributed systems and platform infrastructure.
• A track record of serving as a principal, staff-plus, distinguished, or equivalent technical leader across multiple teams or a broad technical domain.
• Deep expertise in distributed-systems design, including scalability, availability, latency, consistency, concurrency, partition tolerance, caching, replication, and failure recovery.
• Experience designing and operating security-sensitive or reliability-critical services in production.
• Strong software engineering experience with one or more systems languages or backend ecosystems, such as Go, Java, Rust, C++, Python, or equivalent.
• Demonstrated ability to move from ambiguous requirements to clear architecture, sequenced execution plans, and durable engineering outcomes.
• Experience making architecture decisions that balance security, correctness, performance, operational simplicity, and time to value.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to influence without direct authority and build alignment across organizational boundaries.
• A track record of improving engineering standards, mentoring senior engineers, and helping teams deliver complex systems safely.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance
• Company-paid Life Insurance
• Voluntary supplemental life insurance
• Short and long-term disability insurance
• Flexible Spending Account
• Health Savings Account
• Tuition Reimbursement
• Ability to Participate in Employee Stock Purchase Program (ESPP)
• Mental Wellness Benefits through Spring Health
• Family-Forming support provided by Carrot
• Paid Parental Leave
• Flexible, full-service childcare support with Kinside
• 401(k) with a generous employer match
• Flexible PTO
• Catered lunch each day in our office and data center locations
• A casual work environment
• A work culture focused on innovative disruption