Principal Software Engineer (Dataplane & Edge Infrastructure)

TL;DR

Principal Software Engineer (Dataplane & Edge Infrastructure): Architecting and building the TeraWave Point of Presence (PoP) infrastructure to handle terabits of traffic with an accent on low-level software and wire-speed packet processing. Focus on optimizing the dataplane using DPDK and VPP, implementing IP networking stacks, and eliminating software-hardware interface bottlenecks.

Location: Greater Seattle Area or Bay Area, CA. Must be a U.S. citizen, national, permanent resident, or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum

Salary: $230,773.00 - $323,081.85

Company

hirify.global is an aerospace company developing reusable, safe, and low-cost space vehicles to enable millions of people to live and work in space.

What you will do

• Architect a scalable and ultra-high-performance Point of Presence (PoP) infrastructure from the ground up.
• Build and optimize the dataplane using DPDK and VPP to ensure wire-speed packet processing and maximum throughput.
• Implement and fine-tune IP networking stacks, including BGP, OSPF, and custom routing logic.
• Drive performance engineering to eliminate bottlenecks at the software-hardware interface, optimizing for latency and CPU cache efficiency.
• Provide technical leadership by mentoring senior engineers and setting standards for code quality and system design.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to integrate PoP infrastructure with the broader satellite communications ecosystem.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related field.
• 10+ years of experience in software engineering focused on high-performance networking or systems-level programming.
• Expert-level proficiency in C or C++ and deep hands-on experience with DPDK and VPP.
• Comprehensive understanding of networking protocols including IPv4/v6, BGP, MPLS, VXLAN, and Segment Routing.
• Strong knowledge of Linux kernel networking, eBPF/XDP, and system parameter tuning.
• Must be a U.S. citizen, national, permanent resident (Green Card), or lawfully admitted refugee/asylee

Nice to have

• Master's degree or higher in a technical field.
• Experience with Rust in a networking or systems programming context.
• Experience with SmartNICs or FPGA-based network offloading.
• Contributions to open-source networking projects such as FD.io or DPDK.
• Experience with containerized networking solutions including Kubernetes CNI and Multus.

Culture & Benefits

• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision insurance.
• 401(k) with a company match of up to 5%.
• Up to four weeks of paid time off per year and 14 company-paid holidays.
• Paid parental leave and short/long-term disability.
• Education Support Program.