Senior C++ Software Engineer – Large-Scale Distributed Systems

Software Engineer III (Core Infrastructure & Distributed Systems)

Location: San Jose, CA (Onsite)

Duration: 6-Month Contract (Potential Extension)

About the Role

We are seeking experienced Software Engineers to join a high-performance infrastructure engineering team responsible for building and maintaining large-scale backend systems that power advanced AI-driven and search-related services. This role focuses on low-level systems development, distributed computing, platform reliability, and performance optimization within a highly scalable environment.

The ideal candidate will have extensive experience developing and maintaining mission-critical backend systems with strict latency, throughput, and reliability requirements.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and optimize low-level infrastructure components using C++.
• Build and maintain highly scalable distributed systems supporting real-time workloads.
• Troubleshoot production issues, perform root cause analysis, and implement long-term reliability improvements.
• Optimize system performance across software and hardware layers, including CPU and GPU resource utilization.
• Collaborate closely with platform, infrastructure, and reliability engineering teams.
• Contribute to operational excellence through monitoring, observability, automation, and incident response activities.
• Support the deployment and operation of AI/ML-powered services in production environments.

Required Qualifications

Technical Skills

• Strong expertise in modern C++ with a focus on systems programming.
• Deep understanding of operating systems, memory management, concurrency, and performance optimization.
• Experience designing and operating large-scale distributed systems.
• Proven background in troubleshooting complex production environments.
• Strong knowledge of system reliability, fault tolerance, and service resiliency.
• Experience optimizing software performance on specialized hardware platforms, including GPU-enabled environments.
• Excellent debugging and problem-solving skills.

Experience

• 6+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Preferred range: 8–12 years of experience in backend infrastructure, systems engineering, or distributed platforms.
• Senior and architect-level candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) or production operations.
• Background supporting high-availability, low-latency services at significant scale.
• Familiarity with release automation, deployment systems, and internal infrastructure tooling.
• Experience with machine learning infrastructure, model serving platforms, or AI application deployment.
• Exposure to cloud-scale or enterprise-scale distributed platforms.
• Master's or PhD degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical discipline is a plus.

Ideal Candidate Background

Candidates may come from areas such as:

• Core Infrastructure Engineering
• Distributed Systems Engineering
• Backend Platform Development
• Site Reliability Engineering (SRE)
• Systems Programming
• Performance Engineering
• Storage, Networking, or Compute Infrastructure
• Hardware-Adjacent Software Development

What We're Looking For

Successful candidates will have experience building and operating systems that:

• Process large volumes of requests with strict performance requirements.
• Require high availability and operational excellence.
• Operate within complex distributed environments.
• Demand strong ownership, debugging, and production support skills.
• Balance feature development with reliability and operational responsibilities.

Not a Fit For

This role is not intended for candidates whose primary experience is in:

• Front-end or UI development
• Mobile application development
• Pure application-layer engineering without systems experience
• Primarily scripting-language-based development without strong C++ expertise
• Junior-level engineers with limited systems programming experience

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