Senior Developer Productivity Engineer — Bazel & CI

Chalk; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Chalk is hiring its first software engineer dedicated to developer productivity, owning the Bazel build system and improving containerized dev environments used by every engineer. The role demands 5+ years of experience, strong C++ skills, and hands-on Bazel and Buildkite experience to drive speed, reliability, and scalable tooling.

You will collaborate across engineering, set priorities, and shape the infrastructure that enables faster iteration and lower latency for Chalk’s platform.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Hands-on Bazel experience with BUILD files and Starlark.
• C++ coding experience as a software engineer.
• Ability to work autonomously and make pragmatic tradeoffs.
• Strong communication skills; focus on business outcomes.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent experience.

Responsibilities

• Own our Bazel build system, including toolchains and remote execution.
• Collaborate across engineering to provide a consistent dev experience in containers.
• Establish test and benchmark patterns and CI health.
• Drive down test flakiness and improve build/test speed.
• Enhance C++ and Rust builds/tests with tooling and caching.

Skills

Autonomy

Strong communication

Problem solving

Business outcomes

Team collaboration

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent

Tools

Bazel

C++

Starlark (BUILD files)

Buildkite

Nix

Job description

Chalk is hiring its first software engineer dedicated to developer productivity, owning the Bazel build system and improving containerized dev environments used by every engineer. The role demands 5+ years of experience, strong C++ skills, and hands-on Bazel and Buildkite experience to drive speed, reliability, and scalable tooling.

You will collaborate across engineering, set priorities, and shape the infrastructure that enables faster iteration and lower latency for Chalk’s platform.