Senior Staff Software Engineer, Core Infrastructure

Robinhood; Bellevue, Northern (WA, KY); Hybrid; USD 200,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Robinhood in Menlo Park, CA is seeking a Senior Staff Software Engineer to guide core infrastructure that underpins 24/7 trading, crypto, and global expansion. You will own architectural evolution across service mesh, compute platform, and provisioning, shaping velocity and reliability while enabling region scaling.

This is a platform-led role focused on foundational design rather than routine operations. The role emphasizes in-person collaboration, with a strong focus on building invisible,

Qualifications

• Experience designing and operating scalable infrastructure.
• Strong background in distributed systems and platform engineering.
• Proven ability to define and drive architecture across multiple teams.

Responsibilities

• Own service mesh architecture end-to-end for multi-region operation.
• Drive Kubernetes compute platform evolution and cluster lifecycle strategy.
• Redesign Terraform provisioning into a scalable, self-service platform.
• Diagnose issues in Kubernetes API machinery, etcd, Envoy xDS, and Terraform provider layers.
• Define technical direction across teams with architecture proposals.

Skills

Service mesh

Kubernetes

Terraform

Distributed systems

Platform engineering

Tools

Istio

Envoy

Job description

Senior Staff Software Engineer, Core Infrastructure

Join us in building the future of finance.

Our mission is to democratize finance for all. An estimated $124 trillion of assets will be inherited by younger generations in the next two decades. The largest transfer of wealth in human history. If you're ready to be at the epicenter of this historic cultural and financial shift, keep reading.

About the team + role

We are building an elite team, applying frontier technologies to the world's biggest financial problems. We're looking for bold thinkers. Sharp problem-solvers. Builders who are wired to make an impact. Robinhood isn't a place for complacency, it's where ambitious people do the best work of their careers. We're a high-performing, fast-moving team with ethics at the center of everything we do. Expectations are high, and so are the rewards.

The Core Infrastructure team's mission is to build and evolve the foundational platform that every Robinhood engineering team builds on — owning the systems, primitives, and developer-facing abstractions that power 24/7 trading, crypto, and global expansion. We treat infrastructure as a product: reliable, fast to provision, and invisible to the teams above it.

As a Senior Staff Software Engineer on Core Infrastructure, you will own the architectural evolution of three deeply interconnected domains: service mesh and connectivity, compute platform, and infrastructure provisioning. Your decisions will directly shape engineering velocity, operational reliability, and Robinhood's ability to expand to new regions and markets. This is not an operations role — it's a once-in-a-platform-lifecycle opportunity to redesign the foundation before complexity becomes permanent!

This role is based in our Menlo Park, Californiaoffice, with in-person attendance expected at least 3 days per week.

At Robinhood, we believe in the power of in-person work to accelerate progress, spark innovation, and strengthen community. Our office experience is intentional, energizing, and designed to fully support high-performing teams.

What you'll do

• Own service mesh architecture end-to-end — standardize and evolve Robinhood's Istio and Envoy deployment, eliminate deprecated communication patterns, and build the networking foundation for multi-region operation
• Drive Kubernetes compute platform evolution — define the long-term direction for cluster lifecycle, scheduling strategy, control plane architecture, and multi-region resiliency across Robinhood's entire compute fleet
• Redesign infrastructure provisioning — transform Terraform from a collection of ad-hoc configurations into a scalable, self-service platform capability that enables rapid region provisioning and developer autonomy
• Operate with source-level depth — diagnose and resolve issues at the Kubernetes API machinery, etcd, Envoy xDS, and Terraform provider layer, and contribute upstream where it serves the platform
• Define technical direction across teams — produce architecture proposals,