Senior Software Engineer II, Compute

Linuxcareers; Seattle, Northern (WA, KY); Hybrid; USD 167,000 - 209,000; Full time

Job summary

DigitalOcean in Seattle seeks a Senior Software Engineer II for the Compute team to build and optimize distributed control plane microservices for cloud infrastructure. You will design scalable Go-based services, craft high-throughput gRPC interfaces, and mentor teammates while elevating engineering standards across the Compute ecosystem.

This IC4 role emphasizes low-level systems work, Linux kernel interactions with KVM/Firecracker, and ensuring world-class availability across global data

Qualifications

• Experience with Go and high-throughput microservices.
• Strong understanding of distributed systems concepts.
• Experience mentoring engineers and guiding technical decisions.

Responsibilities

• Architect and implement scalable distributed control plane microservices in Go.
• Design robust gRPC interfaces and service contracts for high throughput communication.
• Mentor team members through architectural reviews and coding standards.
• Establish observability and automated recovery frameworks for minimal downtime.

Skills

Go

gRPC

Distributed systems

Mentoring

Tools

KVM

Firecracker

eBPF

cgroups

Linux kernel

Job description

DigitalOcean seeks a Senior Software Engineer II to join their Compute team in Seattle, building and optimizing distributed control plane microservices for cloud infrastructure. This high-impact IC4 role combines advanced expertise in Go, microservices, and low-level systems with mentorship responsibilities to elevate engineering standards across the Compute ecosystem.

What You'll Do

• Architect and implement scalable distributed control plane microservices in Go to orchestrate low-latency compute workloads across hypervisor nodes
• Design robust gRPC interfaces and service contracts for high-throughput, fault-tolerant communication across platform boundaries
• Optimize Linux kernel interactions and virtualization subsystems such as KVM, Firecracker, and cgroups to maximize compute performance and system uptime
• Mentor multiple team members through technical guidance, architectural reviews, and code quality standards to accelerate team growth and execution velocity
• Establish operational observability, failover strategies, and automated recovery frameworks to minimize platform toil and resolve critical production incidents
• Participate in on-call operational support and continuous improvement retrospectives to maintain world-class availability across global data centers

What You Need

• Experience with Go, high-throughput microservices architecture, gRPC, and building distributed control planes or low-latency infrastructure APIs
• Experience with low-level systems engineering, Linux kernel concepts, containerization, or hypervisor-level virtualization such as KVM, Firecracker, eBPF, and cgroups
• Deep understanding of distributed systems principles, concurrency patterns, failure modes, and performance optimization in Linux environments
• Strong relational intelligence and communication skills with a track record of driving complex cross-team technical projects and mentoring engineers
• Growth mindset focused with a desire to learn, appetite for feedback, and commitment to leaving systems and code better than you found them

Salary range $167,200–$209,000 plus potential bonus based on company and individual performance; equity compensation including equity grants upon hire and Employee Stock Purchase Program; competitive benefits including flexible time off, conference and training reimbursement, LinkedIn Learning access, Employee Assistance Program, and local employee meetups