Senior Software Engineer (Distributed Systems)

Location: Remote in the United States or Canada

Company

Series A software company building SpiceDB, an open-source permissions database, and commercial authorization infrastructure for fine-grained access control at enterprise scale.

What you will do

• Research, design, implement, test, and release features across SpiceDB and related open-source projects.
• Develop distributed systems and cloud-native solutions focused on correctness, performance, scalability, reliability, and operability.
• Investigate statement planning and execution issues in complex distributed systems.
• Own software throughout development, deployment, production operations, and on-call rotation.
• Improve software quality through testing, CI/CD, technical documentation, and open-source collaboration.
• Collaborate with engineering, product, and support teams while mentoring colleagues and representing technical work through documentation, blogs, and talks.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a related field, or equivalent experience.
• 5+ years of experience with programming languages such as Go, Python, or Java.
• Strong systems engineering background, including distributed systems, operating systems, or databases.
• Experience building and debugging complex production systems where correctness, reliability, and performance are critical.
• Experience with cloud infrastructure, distributed databases, CI/CD, Docker, and Git.
• Ability to communicate technical concepts clearly and collaborate effectively in remote-first, cross-time-zone teams.

Nice to have

• Experience building Kubernetes controllers or operators.
• Knowledge of database implementation concepts such as compilers, indexes, query planning, optimization, and materialized views.
• Familiarity with modern authorization systems and access-control models.

Culture & Benefits

• Fully remote work with flexible hours aligned with individual schedules and time zones.
• Supportive, collaborative environment emphasizing agency, open-mindedness, mutual respect, and psychological safety.
• Structured mentorship and recognition of professional achievements.
• Competitive pay tailored to experience and early-stage startup stock options.
• Healthcare for US team members and insurance plans.
• Twice-yearly team offsites.