Staff Software Engineer (Backend)

Tubi - Canada; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 227,000 - 325,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical/Dental/Vision

401(k) plan

Flexible time off

Parental leave

Wellness reimbursement

Job summary

Tubi, a division of Fox Corporation, seeks a Staff Software Engineer to influence multiple teams and drive the architecture of large-scale distributed systems. This hybrid role supports both SF and NYC offices, with travel to either location three days per week.

You will mentor engineers, shape backend practices, and lead critical design decisions across platforms, including AI-native workflows. The role demands deep expertise in backend development (Elixir/Rust), strong cross-team leadership,

Qualifications

• Extensive experience designing and operating large-scale distributed systems.
• Deep backend development experience with Elixir and Rust.
• Strong architectural judgment with cross-team technical leadership.
• Experience with Kubernetes and observability systems.

Responsibilities

• Define and drive architectural direction across multiple services and teams.
• Lead the design and evolution of distributed systems.
• Ensure systems are built for long-term scalability, resilience, observability, and security.
• Drive cross-team technical alignment across client, infrastructure, product, ads, and content organizations.
• Mentor senior engineers and elevate engineering standards across the team.
• Own critical system design decisions that impact multiple platforms.
• Contribute to domain leadership in areas such as Linear systems, EPG platforms, or time-based content architectures (preferred).
• Shape and evolve backend development practices, including AI-native engineering workflows.

Skills

Distributed systems

Elixir/Rust backend

gRPC/Protobuf

Kubernetes

Observability

Leadership

On-call/production reliability

Tools

Pingora

Nginx

Job description

About the Role:

We are looking for a Staff Software Engineer who combines deep technical expertise with strong organizational influence. This role operates beyond individual service ownership and requires demonstrated impact across teams, domains, and large-scale distributed systems.

This is a hybrid role based out of either our SF or NYC office. You must be willing to travel to our SF or NYC office 3 days/week.

What You’ll Do:

• Define and drive architectural direction across multiple services and teams
• Lead the design and evolution of distributed systems
• Ensure systems are built for long-term scalability, resilience, observability, and security
• Drive cross-team technical alignment across client, infrastructure, product, ads, and content organizations
• Mentor senior engineers and elevate engineering standards across the team
• Own critical system design decisions that impact multiple platforms
• Contribute to domain leadership in areas such as Linear systems, EPG platforms, or time-based content architectures (preferred)
• Shape and evolve Tubi’s backend development practices, including AI-native engineering workflows
• Flexibility to support business-critical needs outside regular working hours when necessary, like oncall and live events.
• Strong sense of ownership, with proactive attention to on-call situations and production stability.
• Demonstrated cross-team leadership, with familiarity working across multiple teams in complex organizational environments.

Your Background:

• Extensive experience designing and operating large-scale distributed systems
• Deep expertise in backend development (Elixir and Rust preferred, or strong background in comparable languages)
• Strong architectural judgment with proven cross-team technical leadership
• Strong experience with gRPC/Protocol Buffers, RESTful APIs, Kubernetes, and observability systems
• Demonstrated ability to lead complex, cross-functional initiatives
• Strong communication skills with the ability to articulate trade-offs and drive alignment
• Experience working in high-traffic, mission-critical production environments
• Familiarity with Linear content systems, EPG platforms, or other time-based scheduling architectures is preferred
• Hands-on experience building or supporting systems for large-scale live events (e.g., major sports tournaments) with high concurrency and real-time demands.

Bonus/Preferred:

• Deep production experience in Elixir & Rust
• Deep production experience with Pingora or Nginx
• Advanced Kubernetes experience
• Prior ownership of large-scale architectural transformations

The AI Mandate: AI-Driven Development Practice

This role goes beyond traditional engineering. As a Staff Engineer, you will help define how AI is integrated into backend development at Tubi. The goal is to unlock smarter execution, faster delivery, and automation at scale, while ensuring responsible and secure use of these technologies.

This includes but is not limited to:

AI-Augmented Backend Development:
Establishing best practices for AI-assisted coding tools (Claude Code, Cursor, etc.) to accelerate development while maintaining high standards for correctness, security, and performance. You will set the bar for responsible and effective AI usage across backend teams.

AI-Enhanced Architecture & Optimization:
Exploring and guiding how AI can assist in system design, performance tuning, and anomaly detection across Tubi’s distributed backend systems. You will influence how AI-powered insights improve throughput, latency, and operational efficiency.

AI-Driven Developer Experience:
Driving improvements in internal tools and workflows that leverage AI to enhance productivity, code quality, and observability, helping evolve Tubi’s backend engineering culture into an AI-native practice.

Pursuant to state and local pay disclosure requirements, the pay range for this role, with final offer amount dependent on education, skills, experience, and location is listed annually below. This role is also eligible for an annual discretionary bonus, long-term incentive plan, and various benefits including medical/dental/vision, insurance, a 401(k) plan, paid time off and other benefits in accordance with applicable plan documents.

High cost labor markets such as but not limited to Los Angeles, New York City, and San Francisco

$227,200—$324,500 USD

Tubi is a division of Fox Corporation, and the FOX Employee Benefits summarized here,covers the majority of all US employee benefits.The following distinctions below outline the differences between the Tubi and FOXbenefits:

• For US-based non-exempt Tubi employees, the FOX Employee Benefits summary accurately captures the Vacation and Sick Time.
• For all salaried/exempt employees, in lieu of the FOX Vacation policy, Tubi offers a Flexible Time off Policy to manage all personal matters.
• For all full-time, regular employees, in lieu of FOX Paid Parental Leave, Tubi offers a generous Parental Leave Program, which allows parents twelve (12) weeks of paid bonding leave within the first year of birth, adoption, surrogacy, or foster placement of a child in addition to applicable government leave program(s) and FOX’s short-term disability policy. This time is 100% paid through a combination of any applicable state, city, and federal leaves and wage-replacement programs in addition to contributions made by Tubi.
• For all full-time, regular employees, Tubi offers a monthly wellness reimbursement.

About Tubi:

Boldly built for every fandom, Tubi is a free streaming service that entertains over 100 million monthly active users. Tubi offers the world’s largest collection of Hollywood movies and TV shows, thousands of creator-led stories and hundreds of Tubi Originals made for the most passionate fans. Headquartered in San Francisco and founded in 2014, Tubi is part of Tubi Media Group, a division of Fox Corporation.

We are an equal opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, gender identity, disability, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. We will consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories consistent with applicable law.