Job description
We are looking for a world-class Principal Software Engineer to be the chief architect and builder of our decentralized storage fabric. This is a greenfield opportunity to design and implement a system that challenges the traditional cost models of cloud storage. You will be responsible for creating a highly available, decentralized system that can serve petabytes of user-generated content with low latency across the globe.
Your central challenge will be to solve the complex engineering trade-offs between performance, durability, and decentralization to create a service that is not only technically elegant but also economically disruptive. You will be the technical authority on storage and content delivery, making foundational decisions that will underpin the future of our company. If you want to redefine what's possible in large-scale data storage, this role is for you.
Key responsibilities
- Architect & Design: Lead the end-to-end architecture of our decentralized storage network. Design core components including data placement, geodistribution, advanced erasure coding schemes, and peer-to-peer discovery and routing protocols.
- Content Delivery & Caching: Architect a sophisticated caching layer and content delivery strategy to ensure low-latency retrieval of media files (photos, videos) for end-users, regardless of their location.
- Hands-on Development: Write and deploy high-quality, production-grade systems code, primarily in Go or Rust. You will be a key individual contributor, building the most critical and complex parts of the network.
- Economic & Integrity Protocols: Collaborate on the design and implementation of the technical protocols that ensure data integrity, proof-of-storage, and availability across a globally distributed network of independent nodes.
- Performance & Cost Optimization: Relentlessly benchmark, profile, and optimize the system for performance, bandwidth efficiency, and cost. Your goal is to deliver a service that is orders of magnitude more cost-effective than traditional solutions.
- Technical Leadership & Mentorship: Serve as the company's subject matter expert on distributed storage. Mentor other engineers, drive technical excellence, and articulate your architectural vision through clear design documents and presentations.
Qualifications
- Required:
- 10+ years of professional software engineering experience, with deep expertise in backend and large-scale distributed systems.
- Extensive, hands-on experience building and operating systems in one or more of the following areas: distributed storage (key-value stores, file systems), Content Delivery Networks (CDNs), or peer-to-peer (P2P) networks.
- Expert-level mastery of a systems programming language such as Go, Rust, or C++.
- Profound, first-principles understanding of distributed systems theory, including consensus, gossip protocols, erasure coding, content addressing, and CAP theorem trade-offs.
- A proven history of leading the architecture of complex, scalable, and resilient systems from concept to production.
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science or a related field.
- Bonus Points (Preferred):
- A PhD focused on Distributed Systems, Networking, or Databases.
- Experience designing systems that must function across a heterogeneous, non-trusting, or adversarial network of nodes.
- Familiarity with media streaming protocols (e.g., HLS, DASH) and video-on-demand delivery pipelines.
- Contributions to significant open-source projects in the storage, database, or networking space.
- Experience with performance optimization for both network I/O and storage I/O on modern hardware.
