Senior Backend Engineer, Flag Delivery

LaunchDarkly; United States; On-site; USD 163,000 - 224,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Restricted Stock Units

Health insurance

Vision insurance

Dental insurance

Mental health benefits

Job summary

LaunchDarkly is seeking a Senior Software Engineer on the Flag Delivery team to own critical-path streaming systems that deliver feature-flag configurations globally in near real time. The role emphasizes reliability, low latency, and high scale as you shape the next generation of flag-delivery architecture using Go, AWS, Terraform, and Datadog.

You will design, build, and operate distributed systems, improve streaming infrastructure, and collaborate across SDK, Core Product, and Data Platform

Qualifications

• 6+ years of backend engineering experience in distributed/high-throughput production systems.
• Proven track record owning reliable, low-latency services.
• On-call experience with strong observability mindset.
• Proficiency in at least one backend language (Go/Rust/Python) and cloud platform (AWS).
• Hands-on with infrastructure-as-code (Terraform) and observability tools (Datadog/Prometheus/New Relic).
• Strong understanding of concurrency, retries, idempotency, and failure handling.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and operate distributed systems delivering feature-flag configuration to LaunchDarkly SDKs.
• Own and improve reliability, latency, and scalability of streaming and polling infrastructure.
• Debug and resolve complex production issues and participate in on-call rotations.
• Collaborate with SDK, Core Product, and Data Platform teams on flag delivery to customers.
• Write maintainable, well-tested code and participate in code/design reviews and production-readiness discussions.
• Drive architectural decisions balancing performance, cost, and operability.
• Improve observability, deployment safety, and operational processes for Flag Delivery.

Skills

Backend engineering

Distributed systems

On-call ownership

Reliability

Communication

Tools

Go

Rust

Python

AWS

Terraform

Datadog

Prometheus

New Relic

Job description

About the Job:

Software powers the world, and LaunchDarkly empowers teams to deliver and control it safely. As a Senior Software Engineer on the Flag Delivery team, you will own the critical-path systems that stream feature-flag configuration to every connected SDK globally, in near real time. These systems run at high scale and have to stay reliable, low-latency, and correct; when they fail, customers lose control of their features.

This is added headcount on a growing team. You will work on the next generation of the flag-delivery architecture, streaming rollouts, and reliability and scale hardening. Our stack is Go, AWS, Terraform, and Datadog, but exact tool match matters less than deep backend expertise and a track record of owning production systems.

Responsibilities:

• Design, build, and operate the distributed systems that deliver feature-flag configuration to LaunchDarkly SDKs.
• Own and improve the reliability, latency, and scalability of our streaming and polling infrastructure.
• Debug and resolve complex production issues, sharing the team’s on-call rotation.
• Partner with SDK, Core Product, and Data Platform teams on how flags reach customers.
• Write maintainable, well-tested code and engage in code reviews, design reviews, and production-readiness discussions.
• Drive architectural decisions, trading off performance, cost, and operability.
• Raise the bar on observability, deployment safety, and operational process for Flag Delivery.

Qualifications:

• 6+ years of professional backend engineering, with significant work on distributed or high-throughput production systems.
• Track record designing, building, operating, and debugging reliable, low-latency services.
• Strong production ownership, including on-call experience and a focus on reliability and observability.
• Proficient in at least one backend language (Go, Rust, Python) and comfortable on a cloud platform (AWS or equivalent).
• Hands-on with infrastructure-as-code (Terraform or equivalent) and observability tooling (Datadog, Prometheus, New Relic).
• Deep grasp of distributed-systems fundamentals: concurrency, partitioning, retries, idempotency, backpressure, and failure handling.
• Writes clean, maintainable code and collaborates well on technical design.
• Communicates clearly and holds a high bar for operational excellence.

Pay:

Target pay ranges based on Geographic Zones* for Level 4:

• Zone 1: San Francisco/Bay Area or NYC Metropolitan Area, Boston, Seattle - $191,800 - 263,670**
• Zone 2: Irvine, LA, Monterey, Santa Barbara, Santa Rosa, Austin, Portland, Philadelphia, Chicago - $172,600 - $237,270**
• Zone 3: All other US locations - $163,000 - $224,070**

LaunchDarkly operates from a place of high trust and transparency; we are happy to state the pay range for our open roles to best align with your needs. Exact compensation may vary based on skills, experience, and location.

*Within the United States, our geographic pay zones are defined by counties surrounding major metropolitan areas.
**Restricted Stock Units (RSUs), health, vision, and dental insurance, and mental health benefits in addition to salary.

About LaunchDarkly:

Modern software delivery was supposed to be the foundation for a thriving digital business but reality has proven otherwise. Slow, inefficient development cycles, costly outages, and fragmented customer experiences are preventing developers from building their best software. The LaunchDarkly platform helps developers innovate on new features faster while protecting them with a safety valve to instantly rewind when things go wrong. Developers can target product experiences to any customer segment and maximize the business impact of every feature. And by gradually rolling out new application components, they escape nightmare "big-bang" technology migrations.

The LaunchDarkly platform was built to guide engineers to the next frontier of DevOps by:

• Improving the velocity and stability of software releases, without the fear of end customer outages
• Delivering targeted experiences by easily personalizing features to customer cohorts
• Maximizing the business impact of every feature through the ability to experiment and optimize
• Coordinating the release and optimization of software to provide consistent experiences across mobile platforms and device types
• Improving the effectiveness and productivity of engineering teams, by providing insights into engineering cadence and stability

We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. LD invites any applicant to review our written Aff... To do so, contact People Ops at [e-mail].

Do you need a disability accommodation?

Fill out this accommodations request form and someone from our People Operations team will contact you for assistance.

Your safety matters to us. To protect yourself from potential scams, LaunchDarkly recruiters will only contact you from @launchdarkly.com email addresses or via LinkedIn from "Verified Recruiter" accounts. Be cautious of emails from other domains. Legitimate LaunchDarkly recruiters will never ask for money, fees, or banking information before making a job offer. LaunchDarkly will never make a job offer without conducting a formal interview process. Our interview process does not involve asking detailed questions by email. If you are ever unsure about a communication that you receive, don't click any links—

Please notify us of any fraudulent representation by sending an email to [e-mail].