Senior Staff Software Engineer, Unified Proxy

temporal; United States; Remote; USD 230,000 - 290,000; Full time

Job summary

A progressive technology firm is seeking a Senior Staff Software Engineer to lead the technical strategy for the Unified Temporal Proxy initiative. This role involves consolidating proxy implementations to enhance security and functionality within the Temporal Cloud infrastructure. The ideal candidate should have significant experience in high-availability systems, a deep understanding of security protocols, and proficiency in Go programming. Join the team to influence the future of developer experience and security.

Benefits

Equity plan participation

Inclusive work environment

Equal opportunity employer

Qualifications

• Proven experience in delivering security-critical networking or proxy systems.
• Strong proficiency in Go programming language.
• Capability to navigate ambiguity and define technical vision.

Responsibilities

• Define and drive architecture for unified proxy framework.
• Translate business requirements into technical designs.
• Mentor engineers on distributed systems architecture.

Skills

Architecting high-availability systems

Understanding of authentication/authorization patterns

Expertise in data encryption

Proficiency in Go or comparable systems programming language

Familiarity with distributed systems

Job description

Senior Staff Software Engineer, Unified Proxy

Who We Are

Temporal is an open source programming model that can simplify code, make applications more reliable, and help developers focus on the important things like delivering features faster. Our amazing user community provides us with real-time feedback and contributions to improve the developer experience everywhere.

Backed by top VC firms, we have built a team of professionals from various successful start-ups and well-known technology companies. Together, we collaborate cross-functionally, engage with and support our users to improve the developer experience, deliver world-class open-source software, and enhance our commercial SaaS platform.

Temporal is growing and working towards building the best community. We are looking for those who share our values, challenge 'standard' thinking, and want to influence our future. If you have a passion for helping developer communities, open-source software, and want to be a part of our amazing team, we'd love to hear from you!

Summary

We are seeking a Senior Staff Engineer in Temporal's Cloud Global Services team to lead the technical strategy and execution of the Unified Temporal Proxy initiative. This individual will be responsible for consolidating disparate proxy implementations into a single, extensible, open-source, and productized solution. The unified proxy is not only a critical enabler for customers—providing security, encryption, and advanced integration capabilities—but also a core component of Temporal Cloud’s own infrastructure, powering hybrid-cloud scenarios and new functionality such as HTTP endpoint support and AI/agent workloads.

The role spans architecture, cross-team collaboration, customer engagement, open-source leadership, and long-term product ownership, with a mandate to build and deliver a reliable, extensible foundation that will serve both customer-facing and internal needs for years to come.

The Unified Proxy will be a critical enabler for both customers and Temporal Cloud. It is a foundational component that will unlock the next phase of Temporal’s platform evolution:

Customer Trust & Security

Customers can depend on the proxy as a secure, production-grade tool that enforces policies consistently and reduces the risk of misconfiguration across all Temporal-related activities. Key concerns addressed include payload encryption, fine-grained authorization logic, and integration with custom identity stores, among others.

Enabling New Critical Functionality

The unified proxy introduces capabilities that are otherwise not possible, such as migrations between self-hosted clusters and Temporal Cloud without requiring complex custom setups. It will also become the preferred way to support HTTP endpoints for Temporal services, expanding accessibility and simplifying integrations.

Foundation for the AI Era

In a future where AI agents are abundant and interact via the Temporal Nexus protocol with MCP servers, the proxy will serve as a central component to ensure secure, controlled, and seamless communication patterns.

Core Part of Temporal Cloud Infrastructure

Beyond enabling customer adoption, the unified proxy is a pillar of Temporal Cloud’s own infrastructure, powering internal services and extending Temporal’s ability to support hybrid-cloud and enterprise-grade scenarios.

Key Responsibilities

• Technical Leadership
  • Define and drive the architecture for a unified, pluggable proxy framework.
  • Establish technical standards for authentication, authorization, encryption, and observability across proxy implementations.
  • Evaluate and integrate existing customer-built, S2S, and Cloud Auth proxies into a single supported solution.
• Strategic Alignment & Productization
  • Translate high-level business and security requirements into technical designs.
  • Ensure proxy meets Tier 0 workload reliability, security, and performance standards.
  • Partner with Product, Security, and Customer Success to align roadmap with customer needs.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration
  • Work closely with Infra Foundations, Security, OSS Server, and CGS teams.
  • Engage directly with strategic customers to understand and incorporate their requirements.
  • Mentor other engineers on distributed systems architecture, networking, and security.
• Drive the open-source development model, ensuring code quality, documentation, and extensibility.
• Advocate for and implement patterns that simplify adoption by both internal and external developers.

Qualifications

Must-Have Technical Skills

• Proven experience architecting and delivering high-availability, security-critical networking or proxy systems.
• Deep understanding of authentication/authorization patterns (OIDC-OpenID Connect on top of OAuth), mTLS, JWT-JASON Web Token, custom identity integrations).
• Expertise in data encryption at rest and in transit, including envelope encryption and key management.
• Strong proficiency in Go or a comparable systems programming language.
• Familiarity with distributed systems, RPC frameworks (gRPC), and cloud networking patterns.

Leadership & Impact

• Track record of leading complex, multi-team technical initiatives to successful delivery.
• Ability to navigate ambiguity, define vision, and create alignment.
• Experience influencing technical direction across organizational boundaries.

Nice-to-Have

• Previous contributions to open-source networking or security projects.
• Experience with hybrid cloud architectures and customer-facing APIs.
• Knowledge of Temporal architecture and its SDK ecosystem.

Success Criteria (12–18 Months)

• Unified proxy is in production use for key customers, with measurable improvements in reliability, maintainability, and adoption.
• Pluggable architecture enables rapid development of new proxy features.
• Documentation, tooling, and test coverage meet Tier 0 production standards.
• Customer feedback reflects improved integration experience and reduced operational burden.
• Existing fragmented proxies developed on the Temporal Cloud side are deprecated in favor of the unified, productized solution, with a clear migration path for internal teams and customers.

Compensation

• The estimated salary range for this role is $230,000 - $290,000.
• Additionally, this role is eligible to participate in Temporal's equity plan.

Temporal Technologies is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Temporal Technologies does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, non-disqualifying physical or mental disability, national origin, veteran status, or any other basis covered by appropriate law. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, merit, and business need. We embrace and celebrate differences and diversity.

Temporal is committed to providing access, equal opportunity, and reasonable accommodation for individuals with disabilities in employment, its services, programs, and activities. If you need to request a reasonable accommodation, please let your Recruiter know so we can assist.