Software Engineer, Systems (Partner 16, Partner 18)

Andreessen Horowitz (a16z); San Francisco, Northern (CA, KY); Hybrid; USD 269,000 - 352,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Carry program

Bonus programs

Benefits package

Job summary

Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) is seeking a Software Engineer for the Applied Software Group in San Francisco. You will own and evolve our internal developer platform, build tooling, and improve developer experience across firms' investing and operations teams.

You will partner with cybersecurity, platform engineers, and product teams to reduce friction, ship reliable infrastructure, and document workflows. This role requires in-office presence 2-3 days weekly.

Qualifications

• 3+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Proficiency in Python 3, Rust or similar backend languages and willingness to learn new technologies.
• Track record of defining and shipping developer platforms or internal tooling that measurably improved engineering velocity.
• Experience deploying services on cloud platforms (GCP, AWS, or Azure).
• Experience with containerized services (Docker) and Kubernetes is a plus.
• Exposure to CI/CD systems (GitHub Actions, CircleCI, Cloud Build).
• Experience with production SQL databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL); NoSQL (Elasticsearch) is a plus.
• Infrastructure-as-code concepts (Terraform, Pulumi) are a plus.
• Ability to work with diverse user groups and deliver quality software with a get-it-done mentality.

Responsibilities

• Own, improve, and help adopt our internal developer platform and tooling.
• Collaborate with engineers across the firm to understand use-cases and reduce friction in daily workflows.
• Build and maintain tools, templates, and libraries that accelerate development across products.
• Support observability, monitoring, and self-service capabilities for production engineers.
• Work with Cybersecurity to ensure secure, compliant developer workflows.
• Create clear developer documentation, onboarding guides, and runbooks.

Skills

Python

Rust

Developer platforms

Cloud platforms

Docker

Kubernetes

CI/CD tooling

SQL databases

Terraform/Pulumi

Tools

GitHub Actions

CircleCI

Cloud Build

PostgreSQL

MySQL

Elasticsearch

Terraform

Pulumi

Job description

We’ve established a team that is defined by respect for the entrepreneur and the company-building process; we know what it’s like to be in the founder’s shoes. We’ve invested in companies like Anduril, Airbnb, Coinbase, Cursor, Databricks, Deel, Figma, GitHub, Roblox, SpaceX, and Stripe. Our team is at the forefront of new technology, helping founders and their companies impact and change the world.

The Role

You will join the Applied Software Group (ASG), a team of experienced individual contributors building internal software tools for the firm's investing and operations teams. As a software engineer optimizing developer experience, you will own, improve and help with the adoption of our internal developer platform as well as the team's wider product portfolio. You will work on and own the infrastructure and tooling that the team and its partners are building with.

The Applied Software Group operates in the mode of an internal startup. We own a tight feedback loop with our users and take on requests from all corners of the firm. In this role, your users are your fellow colleagues — you'll understand their pain points, eliminate friction from their daily workflows, and build the platform and tools that lets everyone build more, faster, and with confidence. While doing so, you will closely work together with your fellow engineers and other teams throughout the firm.

This role requires an in-office presence 2-3 days a week in our San Francisco, CA office.

To join our team, you should be excited to:

• Contribute to and help improve the our developer platform, associated with a diverse set of applications
• Continuously work with your fellow colleagues to understand, review and assist their diverse use-cases for projects
• Build and maintain shared tooling, templates, and internal libraries that accelerate development across the firm’s products
• Support observability, monitoring, and alerting so engineers can self-serve when things break in production
• Collaborate with the Cybersecurity team to help ensure developer workflows meet security and compliance requirements
• Write and maintain developer documentation, onboarding guides, and runbooks that actually get used
• Ship improvements iteratively, incorporating feedback from your users to continuously improve the developer experience
• Take ownership of assigned projects and services, from development through production support, with increasing autonomy over time
• Write clear, well-structured, and maintainable code
• Bring positive energy in every interaction with the team and foster inclusive collaboration
• Stay curious about new tools, technologies, and approaches relevant to infrastructure and developer productivity
• Learn the inner workings of VC and work closely with the investing partnership

Minimum Qualifications

• 3+ years of professional software engineering experience
• Proficiency in Python 3, Rust or similar backend languages and willingness to learn new technologies
• Track record of defining and shipping developer platforms or internal tooling that measurably improved engineering velocity
• Excitement to work directly with a diverse user group with varying technical backgrounds
• Experience deploying services on at least one major cloud platform (GCP, AWS, or Azure)
• Experience with containerized services (Docker); experience with Kubernetes is a plus
• Exposure to CI/CD systems (GitHub Actions, Cloud Build, CircleCI, or similar)
• Experience working with production SQL databases (e.g., PostgreSQL, MySQL); NoSQL experience (e.g., Elasticsearch) is a plus
• Experience with infrastructure-as-code concepts (Terraform, Pulumi, or similar) is a plusExperience working in environments that value rapid iteration, code quality, and operational excellence
• Strong problem-solving skills and solid technical fundamentals with a get-it-done mentality
• Low ego, high empathy, and the capacity to collaborate effectively with diverse teams

This role is open at the Software Engineer (Partner 16) and Senior Software Engineer (Partner 18) levels. The anticipated salary range for this role is between:

• Software Engineer (Partner 16): $269,000 - $314,000
• Senior Software Engineer (Partner 18): $301,000 - $352,000

Final compensation will be determined based on a candidate's overall experience, technical depth, and interview performance.

This role is eligible to participate in the a16z Carry program and various discretionary bonus programs as well as benefit and perquisite plans including health, dental, vision, disability, life insurance, 401K plan, vacation, and sick leave.

• We do only first class business and only in a first class way
• We take a long view of relationships, because we are in the relationship business
• We believe in the future and bet the firm that way
• We are all different, we recognize that, and we win
• We celebrate the good times
• We do it for the team
• We play to win

At a16z we are always looking to hire the absolute best talent and recognize that diversity in our experiences and backgrounds is what makes us stronger. We hire candidates of any race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, marital or family status, disability, Veteran status, and any other status. These differences are what enables us to work towards the future we envision for ourselves, our portfolio companies, and the World.

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