# Staff Software Engineer, Bazel & Go

**Company:** [Instacart](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/instacart)
**Location:** Remote
**Role:** DevOps / SRE
**Salary:** $221k – $280k/yr
**Experience:** 10+ years
**Skills:** Bazel, Go, remote build execution, remote caching, AWS, Distributed Systems, CI/CD
**Posted:** 2026-07-22

> Staff Software Engineer leading technical direction for Instacart's Bazel build system (remote execution, caching, performance) and Go platform (frameworks, libraries, patterns). Hands-on role driving initiatives to improve build times, CI reliability, and developer velocity for 1000+ engineers. Requires 10+ years experience with deep Bazel and Go expertise.

## Job Description

## Lead Technical Direction for Bazel and Go Platforms

- Lead technical direction for Instacart's Bazel build system, including remote caching, remote build execution (RBE), build performance, and developer-facing ergonomics.
- Lead technical direction for Go platform, frameworks, standard libraries, service scaffolding, and patterns used by Go engineers across the company.
- Design and drive multi-quarter initiatives to measurably improve build times, CI reliability, and local development loop for engineers working in Bazel and Go.
- Own developer experience metrics for these systems, define success criteria, instrument them, and prioritize investments based on data.
- Partner with infrastructure, platform, and product engineering teams to roll out changes with minimal disruption.
- Set technical bar for reliability, performance, upgrade cadence, and developer ergonomics.
- Mentor engineers on the team and broader org; grow community of Bazel and Go experts.
- Represent team in cross-org technical discussions on build, CI/CD, and backend platform direction.

## Minimum Qualifications
- 10+ years of software development experience.
- Deep, hands-on expertise with Bazel, including remote caching, RBE, and performance tuning of large build graphs.
- Strong production experience writing and operating Go services at scale, with expertise in structuring large Go codebases (frameworks, dependency management, testing patterns, shared libraries).
- Track record of leading cross-team technical initiatives with measurable impact on developer velocity, build performance, or CI reliability.
- Experience with cloud infrastructure (AWS preferred) and distributed systems.
- Strong technical leadership, including driving direction, mentoring, and influencing without authority.

## Preferred Qualifications
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or equivalent experience.
- Experience migrating large codebase or monorepo to Bazel, or evolving existing Bazel setup through major upgrades.
- Experience owning or contributing to a Go framework, standard library, or service scaffolding used by large engineering org.
- Experience defining and instrumenting developer productivity metrics (build times, cache hit rates, CI reliability, local dev loop).
- Experience at high-growth companies operating developer infrastructure for large engineering organizations.

## Compensation
Base pay ranges (depending on location):
- CA, NY, CT, NJ: $265,000–$279,500
- WA: $254,000–$268,000
- OR, DE, ME, MA, MD, NH, RI, VT, DC, PA, VA, CO, TX, IL, HI: $243,000–$256,500
- All other states: $221,000–$233,000

Eligible for new hire equity grant and annual refresh grants.

## Similar roles

- [Senior/Staff Platform Engineer](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/173d8d09-9dd8-46ad-8e1e-ee52aaf8a0c6) - CodeRabbit - San Francisco, CA - $220k – $280k/yr
- [Member of Technical Staff](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/0e5c80e5-c463-4ff3-a963-00cc16bb6638) - Perplexity - San Francisco, CA - $220k – $405k/yr
- [Staff Infrastructure Engineer](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/3fefd940-a4c3-4192-bf7b-602e79d38977) - Replit - Foster City, CA - $220k – $325k/yr
- [Staff Software Engineer, Managed Orchestration (Managed Kubernetes)](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/bf980fef-24fd-4d61-adde-1d362b118697) - Crusoe - San Francisco, CA - $220k – $250k/yr
- [Staff Platform Engineer](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/532eef15-ca9f-4c90-a2f5-484a5647b734) - TruckSmarter - San Francisco, CA - $220k – $280k/yr

**Apply:** https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/95b8abe0-6659-440e-8b9c-b81a81f5e905
**Canonical:** https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/95b8abe0-6659-440e-8b9c-b81a81f5e905