Senior Principal Software Engineer - Core Systems

San Francisco, CA, United States

Fastly helps people stay better connected with the things they love. Fastly’s edge cloud platform enables customers to create great digital experiences quickly, securely, and reliably by processing, serving, and securing our customers’ applications as close to their end-users as possible — at the edge of the Internet. The platform is designed to take advantage of the modern internet, to be programmable, and to support agile software development. Fastly’s customers include many of the world’s most prominent companies, including Vimeo, Pinterest, The New York Times, and GitHub.

We're building a more trustworthy Internet. Come join us.

We are looking for a Senior Principal Engineer who thrives on designing and navigating the path from today's systems architecture to tomorrow’s strategy and cares deeply about efficiency, security and scale.

The Core Systems organization owns Fastly’s Control Plane. We are a team of backend engineers focused on management, compilation, and validation of customer configuration including propagation of that data to the edge. This role requires collaborating with multiple internal Fastly teams to support critical business initiatives. Our customers rely on these systems to ensure a performant and delightful experience for their users and it is the mission of our team to provide them with a platform that is fast, safe and engaging.

You’ll be deeply hands-on and technical, writing code, designing systems, shipping features, solving for scale and efficiency, guiding and mentoring teammates, and collaborating across the entire engineering organization. You will forge deep connections with other engineers, senior leadership, and partners across the company

What You'll Do

Craft architecturally sound systems to support growth to the next generation of customers

Design and lead delivery of systems that drive our vision for scalability, security, performance and reliability in all the applications

Provide and advocate for solutions to strategic and sophisticated technical problems, while influencing the organization with new ideas

Represent the Team in technical discussions across the organization

Help identify areas of opportunity in existing products and design solutions to support those efforts

Contribute and advocate for iterative improvements to both code and culture

Think strategically about the technical direction of the team’s software, in alignment to Fastly’s long term goals

Anticipate where and when systems will need to be adapted to meet our growth needs

Craft and articulate technical strategy via design documents

Sequence the technical building blocks required to enable durable innovation

Guide, share knowledge, and lead teams implementing cross functional systems

Enable outcome driven, collaborative discussions utilizing the deep technical knowledge of the teams you work with

Mentor and provide regular feedback to engineers

Lead by example. Be an active implementer and team member

Partner with senior engineering leaders to build and execute in both internal and open source contexts

Participate in an on-call rotation

What We're Looking For

15+ years of hands-on experience as an engineer building complex, reliable, and highly efficient systems

Significant experience writing backend systems in Go, but also a generalist mindset with the ability to select and use the right tool for the job

Our tech stack includes Go and Perl, so you’ll need to support applications in both languages from day 1

Track record of choosing pragmatic over perfect solutions to ship features on-time and unblock cross-functional initiatives

Experience building efficient software at scale

Proven experience building internet facing systems that are safely operated

A strong communicator who can articulate and execute a broad technical vision

A history of hands-on technical leadership building scalable and reliable software

Thoughtful, customer-driven approach to design and implementation

Expertise building, analyzing, profiling, or debugging large-scale distributed systems

Excellent collaboration and communication skills; capable of building positive relationships with peers and leadership

Experience mentoring, guiding, and coaching team members and a passion for learning and sharing what you’ve learned with others

We’ll be super impressed if you have experience in any of these :

Experience with Compilers

Experience with AWS Ecosystem

Experience with IAM Systems

Experience with DNS Systems

Experience with Varnish

Work Hours:

This position will require you to be available during core North American business hours and occasional nights and weekends for on call rotation.

Work Locations & Travel Requirements:

The preferred locations for this position are:

San Francisco, CA

Fastly currently embraces a largely hybrid model for most roles which allows employees flexibility to split their time between the office and home.

This position may require travel as required by your role or requested by your manager.

Salary:

The estimated salary range for this position if hired in the United States is $228,280 to $285,350.

Starting salary may vary based on permissible, non-discriminatory factors such as experience, skills, qualifications, and location.

This role may be eligible to participate in Fastly’s equity and discretionary bonus programs.

Benefits:

We care about you. Fastly works hard to create a positive environment for our employees, and we think your life outside of work is important too. We support our teams with great benefits that start on the first day of your employment with Fastly. Curious about our offerings?

We offer a comprehensive benefits package including medical, dental, and vision insurance. Family planning, mental health support along with Employee Assistance Program, Insurance (Life, Disability, and Accident), a Flexible Vacation policy and up to 18 days of accrued paid sick leave are there to help support our employees. We also offer 401(k) (including company match) and an Employee Stock Purchase Program. For 2024, we offer 10 paid local holidays, 11 paid company wellness days.

Why Fastly?

We have a huge impact. Fastly is a small company with a big reach. Not only do our customers (https://www.fastly.com/customers) have a tremendous user base, but we also support a growing number of open source projects and initiatives (https://www.fastly.com/open-source/) . Outside of code, employees are encouraged to share causes close to their heart with others so we can help lend a supportive hand.

We love distributed teams. Fastly’s home-base is in San Francisco, but we have multiple offices and employees sprinkled around the globe. As a new hire, you will be able to attend our IN-PERSON new hire orientation in our San Francisco office! It is an exciting week-long experience that we offer to new employees to build connections with colleagues across Fastly, participate in hands-on learning opportunities, and immerse yourself in our culture firsthand.

We value diversity. Growing and maintaining our inclusive and diverse team matters to us. We are committed to being a company where our employees feel comfortable bringing their authentic selves to work and have the ability to be successful -- every day.

We are passionate. Fastly is chock full of passionate people and we’re not ‘one size fits all’. Fastly employs authors, pilots, skiers, parents (of humans and animals), makeup geeks, coffee connoisseurs, and more. We love employees for who they are and what they are passionate about.

We’re always looking for humble, sharp, and creative folks to join the Fastly team. If you think you might be a fit please apply! A fully completed application and resume or CV are required when applying.

Fastly is committed to ensuring equal employment opportunity and to providing employees with a safe and welcoming work environment free of discrimination and harassment. Our employment decisions are based on business needs, job requirements and individual qualifications. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, family or parental status, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances.

Consistent with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and federal or state disability laws, Fastly will provide reasonable accommodations for applicants and employees with disabilities. If reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and/or to receive other benefits and privileges of employment, please contact your Recruiter, or the Fastly Employee Relations team at [email protected] or 501-287-4901.

Fastly collects and processes personal data submitted by job applicants in accordance with our Privacy Policy (https://www.fastly.com/privacy) . Please see our privacy notice for job applicants (https://www.fastly.com/privacy-job-applicants) .