Principal Software Development Engineer - Rust

Role

We are looking for a Principal Software Engineer to join our team. This is a hybrid role, reporting to the Sr. Director of Software Engineering in the Platform Convergence department. In this role, you will design and scale high-performance backend services to drive the evolution of our converged platform. You will collaborate across teams to build robust distributed systems while mentoring engineers to uphold technical excellence.

What you'll do (Role Expectations)

• Design and build a low-latency, high-throughput data forwarding plane using Rust and async/await models for efficient service-oriented infrastructure
• Develop distributed, scalable systems with a heavy focus on concurrency, fault tolerance, and messaging
• Implement and maintain gRPC-based APIs and services to integrate forwarding plane capabilities with control and orchestration layers
• Optimize system performance through deep profiling across kernel-space and user-space
• Drive technical excellence through code reviews, architectural discussions, documentation, and mentoring junior engineers

Who You Are (Success Profile)

• You thrive in ambiguity. You're comfortable building the path as you walk it. You thrive in a dynamic environment, seeing ambiguity not as a hindrance, but as the raw material to build something meaningful.
• You act like an owner. Your passion for the mission fuels your bias for action. You operate with integrity because you genuinely care about the outcome. True ownership involves leveraging dynamic range: the ability to navigate seamlessly between high-level strategy and hands-on execution.
• You are a problem-solver. You love running towards the challenges because you are laser-focused on finding the solution, knowing that solving the hard problems delivers the biggest impact.
• You are a high-trust collaborator. You are ambitious for the team, not just yourself. You embrace our challenge culture by giving and receiving ongoing feedback-knowing that candor delivered with clarity and respect is the truest form of teamwork and the fastest way to earn trust.
• You are a learner. You have a true growth mindset and are obsessed with your own development, actively seeking feedback to become a better partner and a stronger teammate. You love what you do and you do it with purpose.

What We're Looking for (Minimum Qualifications)

• Foundational understanding of AI/ML technologies and experience leveraging, securing, or positioning AI-driven solutions to optimize outcomes within your functional domain
• 14+ years of software development experience with specific expertise in systems programming and Rust
• Extensive experience with async frameworks such as Tokio or async-std
• Proven track record of building resilient, observable, and horizontally scalable distributed systems
• Deep understanding of Linux fundamentals, networking, container-based environments, CI/CD, and kernel-user space interaction

What Will Make You Stand Out (Preferred Qualifications)

• Experience leveraging AI-assisted developer tools, automated profiling, or AI acceleration libraries to optimize low-latency software architecture
• Professional experience with systems languages like C/C++ or Go in performance-critical environments and kernel-space technologies like eBPF, XDP, or DPDK
• Hands-on experience with gRPC, Protobufs, and L2-L4 networking protocols including TCP/IP, UDP, and QUIC