Sr. Engineer - Cloud Backend (Hybrid) - Sunnyvale

CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc.; Sunnyvale (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 215,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Market leading compensation

Equity awards

Health insurance

Paid time off

Job summary

CrowdStrike is seeking a seasoned backend engineer to join the Spotlight platform team. You will design, build, and operate cloud-native services powering our vulnerability assessment capabilities at global scale, focusing on distributed systems, reliability, and scalable architectures across AWS and GCP.

You will work with Golang and Python, Kafka-based pipelines, and AI-assisted development tools to push from prototype to production while ensuring observability, performance, and security.

Qualifications

• 8–12 years of backend engineering experience.
• Production systems using Golang/Java; distributed architectures.
• Experience with AWS services and Kafka.
• Strong DB skills: Cassandra, Elasticsearch/OpenSearch, Redis.
• Experience with frontier-model SDKs and AI-assisted development tools.
• Ability to communicate effectively and collaborate in a global team.

Responsibilities

• Design and build high-throughput, low-latency backend services and APIs.
• Architect and operate cloud-native infrastructure across AWS and GCP.
• Build and maintain Kafka-based event pipelines for near-real-time processing.
• Drive backend engineering and process automation across the platform.
• Partner with security researchers and platform teams to deliver integrated capabilities.
• Own service reliability—performance profiling, incident response, and root cause analysis.

Skills

Golang

Java

Distributed systems

Microservices

Event-driven architectures

AWS

S3

SQS

Kubernetes

Kafka

Elasticsearch/OpenSearch

Redis

Frontier-model SDKs

AI-assisted development tools

Tools

Terraform/CDK

GCP

Observability tools (Splunk/Grafana)

CI/CD pipelines

Job description

As a global leader in cybersecurity, CrowdStrike protects the people, processes and technologies that drive modern organizations. Since 2011, our mission hasn’t changed — we’re here to stop breaches, and we’ve redefined modern security with the world’s most advanced AI-native platform. We work on large scale distributed systems, processing almost 3 trillion events per day and this traffic is growing daily. Our customers span all industries, and they count on CrowdStrike to keep their businesses running, their communities safe and their lives moving forward. We're proud to work for a mission-driven company leveraging AI to transform the way we work. CrowdStrikers drive their careers through flexibility and autonomy while also being expected to contribute to a culture of responsible AI adoption, experimentation, and innovation. We use an AI-first mindset as a force multiplier to proactively and continuously accelerate execution, build expertise, uncover insights, and solve complex problems. We’re always looking to add talented CrowdStrikers to the team who have limitless passion, a relentless focus on innovation and a fanatical commitment to our customers, our community and each other. Ready to join a mission that matters? The future of cybersecurity starts with you.

About the Role

This is a full stack backend engineering position on the Spotlight platform team. You will design, build, and operate the cloud-native services and infrastructure that power CrowdStrike's endpoint vulnerability assessment capabilities at global scale. This role requires a strong focus on distributed systems, service reliability, scalability, and cloud architecture across AWS and GCP. This role also requires reasoning and judgment over large volumes of continuously changing data, at the scale CrowdStrike operates — work that conventional rule-based systems have only partially addressed. We're treating agentic reasoning as a core architectural element rather than a feature layered onto an existing system, which means real decisions are still open: where reasoning belongs, where determinism is the better answer, and how to make either hold up in production. We're treating agentic reasoning as a core architectural element rather than a feature layered onto an existing system, which means real decisions are still open: where reasoning belongs, where determinism is the better answer, and how to make either hold up in production.

What You'll Do

• Design and build high-throughput, low-latency backend services and APIs in Golang and Python
• Architect and operate cloud-native infrastructure across AWS and GCP at scale (S3, SQS, Kubernetes/KEDA, and more)
• Build and maintain Kafka-based event streaming pipelines for near-real-time vulnerability event processing
• Drive backend engineering and process automation across the platform
• Partner with security researchers and platform teams (Intel, EPP) to deliver integrated capabilities
• Own service reliability — performance profiling, incident response, and root cause analysis on time-sensitive production issues
• Continuously re-engineer for improved architecture, performance, and stability
• Write high-quality, well-tested, production-ready code with a focus on observability and operability
• Build agentic capabilities into the product — systems that reason over real data, use tools, and produce explainable results customers can act on
• Take AI capabilities from prototype to production, owning latency, cost, correctness, and evaluation
• Design the guardrails and policies that make autonomous reasoning safe for enterprise customers

What You'll Need

• 8-12 years of backend engineering experience. Solid experience with Golang/Java in production systems. Strong understanding of distributed systems, microservices, and event-driven architectures. Hands-on experience with AWS cloud services (S3, SQS, and similar) Experience with Kafka or other event streaming platforms. Strong database skills — Cassandra, Elasticsearch/OpenSearch, Redis, or similar distributed data stores. Hands-on use of frontier-model SDKs (Anthropic, OpenAI, or similar) and AI-assisted development tools, with a realistic view of their capabilities and limits. Proven experience utilizing AI technologies to enhance decision-making, streamline workflows and processes, improve efficiency and drive business outcomes. Ability to communicate effectively at all levels of an organization Strong collaboration skills and experience working in a global team Commitment to software quality — unit tested, code reviewed, and continuously integrated

Bonus Points

• Experience in cybersecurity — welcome, though not required
• Experience with Kubernetes and event-driven autoscaling (KEDA)
• Experience with observability tooling (Splunk, Grafana, LogScale, or similar)
• Familiarity with security vulnerability management or cybersecurity platforms
• Good understanding of Windows OS internals and the Windows API
• Experience with infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, CDK, or similar)
• Prior experience with large-scale data acquisition or content pipeline systems
• Experience with evaluation and observability tooling for agentic systems
• Experience with RAG pipelines, vector stores, or retrieval-augmented agents
• Experience with graph databases and complex data modeling

Benefits of Working at CrowdStrike

• Market leader in compensation and equity awards
• Comprehensive physical and mental wellness programs
• Competitive vacation and holidays for recharge
• Paid parental and adoption leaves
• Professional development opportunities for all employees regardless of level or role
• Employee Networks, geographic neighborhood groups, and volunteer opportunities to build connections
• Vibrant office culture with world class amenities
• Great Place to Work Certified across the globe
• CrowdStrike is proud to be an equal opportunity employer.

We are committed to fostering a culture of belonging where everyone is valued for who they are and empowered to succeed. We support veterans and individuals with disabilities through our affirmative action program. CrowdStrike is committed to providing equal employment opportunity for all employees and applicants for employment. The Company does not discriminate in employment opportunities or practices on the basis of race, color, creed, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy or pregnancy-related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, marital or family status, veteran status, age, national origin, ancestry, physical disability (including HIV and AIDS), mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, membership or activity in a local human rights commission, status with regard to public assistance, or any other characteristic protected by law. We base all employment decisions--including recruitment, selection, training, compensation, benefits, discipline, promotions, transfers, lay-offs, return from lay-off, terminations and social/recreational programs--on valid job requirements. If you need assistance accessing or reviewing the information on this website or need help submitting an application for employment or requesting an accommodation, please contact us at [e-mail] for further assistance. Find out more about your rights as an applicant.

CrowdStrike participates in the E-Verify program. Notice of E-Verify Participation Right to Work CrowdStrike, Inc. is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices.

The base salary range for this position for all U.S. candidates is $140,000 - $215,000 per year, with eligibility for bonuses, equity grants and a comprehensive benefits package that includes health insurance, 401k and paid time off. For detailed information about the U.S. benefits package, please click here.

Placement within the pay range is dependent on a variety of factors including, but not limited to, relevant work experience, skills, certifications, job level, supervisory status, and location.

CrowdStrike was founded in 2011 to fix a fundamental problem: The sophisticated attacks that were forcing the world’s leading businesses into the headlines could not be solved with existing malware-based defenses. Founder George Kurtz realized that a brand new approach was needed — one that combines the most advanced endpoint protection with expert intelligence to pinpoint the adversaries perpetrating the attacks, not just the malware. There’s much more to the story of how Falcon has redefined endpoint protection but there’s only one thing to remember about CrowdStrike: We stop breaches.