Software Engineer, Build Systems & Linkers

Astral; United States; Remote; USD 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Astral is seeking a Build Engineer for the python-build-standalone project, responsible for enhancing Python distribution processes. Join a remote, collaborative team that values open-source contributions, offering a competitive salary and comprehensive benefits while minimizing meetings to focus on code delivery.

Benefits

Competitive salary and equity

Comprehensive healthcare benefits

Remote and highly distributed work

Twice annual in-person team gatherings

Qualifications

• Experience in build engineering and solving linker issues.
• Familiarity with open-source development and community engagement.
• Proven ability to collaborate asynchronously.

Responsibilities

• Optimize build-and-release pipelines and upstream changes to CPython.
• Engage with the community by reviewing pull requests and debugging.
• Develop and maintain portable, standalone Python distributions.

Skills

Build engineering

Open source maintenance

Community engagement

Education

Experience with Python

Proficiency in build systems

Job description

Astral

At Astral, our mission is to make the Python ecosystem more productive by building next-generation developer tools — tools that enable developers to ship great software, faster.

To start, we've built Ruff, an extremely fast Python linter and formatter; and uv, a comprehensive Python package manager — two of the fastest-growing developer tools ever.

Next, we're continuing to push the future of Python with a state-of-the-art type checker — and building out our first commercial services.

Our early team includes the authors ofripgrep,bat,hyperfine, andmaturin; early, core contributors toBiomeandPrefect; and multiple CPython core developers — all building at the intersection of Rust and Python.

The Role

This role centers on python-build-standalone, a foundational project in the Python ecosystem that facilitates the creation of portable, standalone Python distributions.

python-build-standalone powers Python installation for uv, Rye, mise, Bazel's rules_python, pipx, Hatch, and more, with over 70,000,000 downloads since its release. For much of the ecosystem, it's now the primary source of Python installations.

Work on python-build-standalone is primarily centered on build engineering: solving linker issues, optimizing build-and-release pipelines, and upstreaming changes to the upstream CPython build system.

As with all positions at Astral, being an open source maintainer is a big part of the job too: engaging with the community, reviewing pull requests, debugging issues, and generally contributing to our culture of developing in the open.

The Team

• We're not only remote, but highly distributed. We hire from Pacific Time (e.g., San Francisco, USA) to Central European Time (e.g., Munich, Germany), and get together twice annually for week-long, in-person on-sites.

• We pay competitively (salary and equity) and offer comprehensive benefits (healthcare and more).

• Our work is highly collaborative, but as is common in open source, much of that collaboration takes place asynchronously (in Discord, or GitHub, or Notion). We minimize meetings, and maximize time spent working in code.

• We're a small, high-trust team. We strive to ship excellent software, at a fast pace... while having fun. (See: Our Values.)

Our Process

Our hiring process is entirely remote and does not include any live coding segments. While the process may vary from candidate to candidate, it generally consists of three phases, each designed to mimic the kind of engagement and interactions you'd have as a member of the team:

1. A take-home project, where we ask you to build a command-line tool based on a pre-defined specification.

2. A presentation, where we ask you to present on some of your own work, and have the kind of technical conversation you'd have as a member of the team, grounded in something that you know well.

3. A co-working engagement, where we spend time working through issues and pull requests together.

Along the way, we'll talk through your background and interests to determine whether Astral is a good fit for your career goals.