Principal Go Engineer

HeadHR; Katowice; Hybrid; PLN 260,000 - 380,000; Full time

Job summary

HeadHR is seeking a Principal Go Engineer to own the architecture and performance of a distributed data platform. You will design scalable Go backend services and lead high-stakes technical initiatives on Kubernetes in a large production environment.

You will mentor engineers, collaborate with DevOps and product teams, and drive architectural decisions to ensure scalability, reliability, and observability across Europe-focused deployments. Remote in European hours.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of software development experience.
• 5+ years of Go programming.
• Experience leading architecture for high availability distributed systems.
• Strong English communication.
• Hands-on ownership of critical backend systems.
• Experience with microservices architectures.

Responsibilities

• Design scalable Go backend services for distributed data platform.
• Build Kafka-based event-driven architecture and data flows.
• Make architectural decisions on scalability, consistency, disaster recovery.
• Optimize Go performance at CPU/memory levels.
• Raise standards for code quality, security, and observability.
• Lead cross-team initiatives and mentor engineers.
• Collaborate with DevOps and product teams; resolve incidents.

Skills

Go

High-load distributed systems

Architectural decision-making

Observability & troubleshooting

Leadership & mentoring

English language fluency

Ownership

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

Kafka

PostgreSQL

gRPC

Protobuf

Terraform

Helm

Ansible

Prometheus

OpenTelemetry

OAuth 2.0

Job description

Requirements

• 10+ yrs dev, 5+ yrs Go.
• Role: Tech Lead, Staff, or Principal Engineer.
• Core: Ownership of high-availability, high-volume distributed systems.
• Go: Advanced (concurrency, memory, profiling, optimization).
• Architecture: Microservices, REST, distributed patterns (partitioning, idempotency).
• Data/Messaging: Kafka (or similar), Advanced PostgreSQL.
• Infra: Docker & Kubernetes (production).
• Skills: Observability, troubleshooting, architectural decision-making.
• Language: Fluent English.

Additional Advantages

• Scale: Millions of events/sec, TB-scale, real-time data.
• Advanced Go: Deep CPU/memory optimization.
• Tech Stack: Druid, gRPC, Protobuf, Terraform, Helm, Ansible.
• Cloud & Monitoring: AWS/GCP/Azure, Prometheus, OpenTelemetry.
• Security & Testing: OAuth 2.0, TLS, Load/Stress testing.
• Domain: Telecom, network analytics, open-source contributions.
• Leadership: Strong hands-on skills mixed with mature architectural trade-off experience.

Kogo poszukujemy?

About the role

Principal Go Engineer for a distributed data and analytics platform. You will code and take ownership of the architecture, performance, and key components. Requires hands-on experience with large production systems processing network data on Kubernetes, public cloud, and on-premises.

• Designing scalable Go backend services and high-performance data pipelines.
• Building Kafka-based event-driven architecture and defining data flows.
• Making architectural decisions regarding scalability, consistency, and disaster recovery.
• Optimizing Go at the CPU, memory, and concurrency levels.
• Raising standards in code quality, security, and observability.
• Leading cross-team technical initiatives and mentoring engineers.
• Collaborating with DevOps/Product teams and resolving production incidents.

We offer

• A distributed system you designed or significantly redesigned.
• A scalability or performance problem you solved independently.
• Systems handling massive volumes of events or data.
• A complex technical initiative you led.
• Two stages: tech interview with the client, followed by an end-client interview.
• End-client meetings occur within ~72h, usually after 4:00 PM.
• Employment requires a successful HireRight background and address check.
• 100% remote working in European hours, available ASAP.