Staff Infrastructure Engineer - Streaming Compute

Shopify Inc.; Canada; Remote; CAD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible remote work

Health and welfare benefits

Flexible compensation options

Remote-friendly culture

Job summary

Shopify Inc. is seeking a Staff Engineer with demonstrated expertise in Apache Flink to scale streaming and batch pipelines across the company's data platform.

You will shape the technical direction, operate Flink at scale in production, and improve developer experience for engineers building data workloads. You’ll mentor engineers, lead cross-team initiatives, and contribute to open source while promoting pragmatism and robust performance as workloads grow.

Qualifications

• Established expert in Apache Flink, with production-scale experience and deep internal knowledge of runtime, state, checkpointing, memory model, and connectors.
• Strong foundation in distributed systems, including stream and batch semantics, storage formats, and resource management.
• Experience mentoring senior engineers and leading cross-team initiatives.

Responsibilities

• Operate Apache Flink at scale in production and debug engine-level issues.
• Shape the technical direction of the platform and push the boundaries of the Flink ecosystem.
• Lead cross-team initiatives and mentor engineers to deliver shipped outcomes.

Skills

Apache Flink

Distributed systems

Kubernetes

Open source

Mentoring

On-call rotation

Performance tuning

Job description

The Streaming Compute team owns the platform that powers large-scale data processing at Shopify with Apache Flink. We provide the infrastructure and tooling that lets teams across the company build, deploy, and operate streaming and batch data pipelines reliably and efficiently. Our platform powers business critical use cases, such as recommendations, catalog, as well as analytics workloads.

Our work spans the full platform: making pipeline development fast and self-serve, improving performance and stability of the underlying compute engine, and keeping the platform cost-efficient as it scales. In this role, you'll work on distributed systems and developer experience, making powerful data processing simple and dependable for every engineer at Shopify.

About the role

As we broaden the scope of our platform, we're looking for a Staff Engineer with demonstrated expertise in Apache Flink. Shopify runs Flink at significant scale, powering both streaming and batch pipelines behind our core products and data-driven features, and we're investing deeply in the next generation of the platform: faster pipeline development, stronger performance and reliability from the engine itself, and efficient operation as workloads grow. You'll work alongside the team to push the boundaries of the core Flink ecosystem, both internally and in the open source community. As a domain expert, you'll shape the technical direction of the platform, dig into the hardest engine-level problems, and raise the bar for how the team builds and operates Flink at scale.

What you’ll bring (we don’t expect you to have done all of this):

• Reflexively use AI to accelerate and improve your daily work.
• Are an established expert in Apache Flink: You've operated it in production at scale, understand its internals (runtime, state, checkpointing, memory model, connectors), and can debug and tune it at the engine level, not just the API level.
• Have contributed to Flink or its ecosystem in the open source community through code, FLIPs, reviews, or active involvement, or have the depth and appetite to start.
• Have strong distributed systems fundamentals: stream and batch processing semantics, storage and table formats, resource management, and running data infrastructure on Kubernetes.
• Can lead through influence: setting technical direction, mentoring senior engineers, and driving cross-team initiatives from ambiguous problems to shipped outcomes.
• Care about developer experience and pragmatism: you build platforms that other engineers love to use, and you know when to tune, when to rewrite, and when to upstream.
• Join the 24/7 on-call rotation.

About the discipline

Engineering. It’s our DNA.

Engineering isn't a department at Shopify. It's our DNA. The engineers who thrive here care about the code, the system, and the merchants relying on both. They want hard problems and uncomfortable growth. They find solutions without waiting for permission. They ship weekly. They want commerce to work better for everyone. So does our founder, Tobi, who still codes and still shapes where this thing is going.

They're open source nerds. They pair program because two brains write better code than one. New tools, new models, new approaches. They experiment constantly. Most of what's standard here started as someone hacking on something.

They use AI like a keyboard, reflexively and everywhere, to clear the mundane and make room for thinking. And they work in the open. The fastest way to learn here is to watch someone better than you do the work. If that sounds like you, come build with us.

Infrastructure Engineers at Shopify build and maintain the systems that handle millions of requests per second and billions of dollars in transactions. At that scale, performance gains matter and weak assumptions surface quickly. Your systems power the experience for millions of entrepreneurs and buyers every minute of every day, including peak events like Black Friday.

Engineers at Shopify spend the majority of their time actually writing code to build and improve infrastructure. You’ll solve problems that don’t exist anywhere else, with challenges that push what’s possible. If that lights you up, come build with us.

Growth and rewards

Mastery-matched compensation.

~Mastery

At Shopify, getting better at your craft and increasing your impact is how you grow. Twice a year, we assess both in our ~Mastery cycle, Shopify’s performance review. Achieving higher ~Mastery is a promotion, and when you earn a promotion your total rewards grow with it. Crafter and manager are equal paths, so you can pursue excellence in the craft you’re best at.

Total Rewards

With Flex Comp, your Rewards Wallet gives you agency over your compensation mix. Adjust your mix of cash, restricted share units, and stock options (including programs like Long-Term Equity)* to where it makes sense for you, and mix it up anytime as life and priorities change. Buying a house? Want more skin in the game? Just experimenting? It’s your call.

* Flex Comp program offerings vary based on location, role, and employment type. Full details are set out in our Terms & Conditions and related plan documents.

Built for real life

Room for the rest of your life.

Flexible work, remote by design

A flexible vacation policy means most Shopifolk can take the vacation days they feel they need to recharge.

If a change of everyday scenery is more your jam, Destination 90 means you can work from (almost) anywhere in the world for 90 days of the year.

Your setup

Your battlestation is your home base. Request the desk, chair, and AV gear you need to get shit done.

You need ‘em, we’ve got ‘em. Our health and welfare benefits may include health, dental, vision, disability, and life insurance depending on your country. If you’re in a country without a package, you'll receive a monthly allowance. We also offer mental health support for you and your dependents, including immediate and confidential services like counseling and coaching sessions.

Family support

We offer fertility benefits globally, along with paid parental leave to welcome a new family member.

The Life Story is how we understand the themes of your career journey so far, human to human. What you’ve learned, and how you made a difference. Show us the trophies and the bruises: the problems you’ve solved, the challenges you encountered, the decisions you made, and the lessons you learned along the way.