Backend Software Engineer - Infrastructure
Builds performant, scalable infrastructure for Palantir's Foundry platform, including distributed systems, search/indexing, and container orchestration. Requires strong coding skills in backend languages like Java/Rust/Go and familiarity with storage/data systems; engineering degree preferred.
About the job
Core Responsibilities
- Building a performant search and indexing ecosystem for complex granularly permissioned data
- Contributing to open-source data processing libraries, integrating the latest innovations to achieve performance gains
- Building the distributed systems that power large scale compute workloads, orchestrating and efficiently scheduling hundreds of thousands of containers every hour
- Designing architecture and opinionated APIs to keep application developers on the happy path
- Tracing and performance observability in high scale distributed microservice architectures
- Building reliable, performant, and scalable systems for storage, auth, or asset serving to enable other product teams to build robust applications without deep domain expertise in the underlying systems
- Automating the deployment, management, and operations of complex distributed systems like Cassandra, Elasticsearch, Kafka, and more across different environments
Technologies We Use
- Different backend languages, including Java, Rust, and Go
- Open-source technologies like Cassandra, Elasticsearch, Spark, Kafka, Kubernetes, Flink
- Industry-standard build tooling, including Gradle and GitHub
What We Value
- Demonstrated ability to collaborate and empathize with a variety of individuals. Able to iterate with users and non-technical stakeholders and understand how technical decisions impact them.
- Ability to learn new technology and concepts, even without in-depth experience. Experience developing and managing highly-available distributed systems is beneficial, but not required.
- Bias towards quality and thoughtful about edge cases (“anything that can go wrong will go wrong”); writes code that is defensive against all possibilities.
- Builds solutions and APIs with users in mind while maintaining a high engineering bar. Seeks to centralize and abstract complexity away from our users in order to expose simple, powerful APIs for consumers.
- Active US Security clearance, or eligibility and willingness to obtain a US Security clearance is beneficial, but not necessary.
What We Require
- Engineering background in Computer Science, Mathematics, Software Engineering, Physics or similar field.
- Strong coding skills with demonstrated proficiency in programming languages, such as Java, C++, Python, Rust, or similar languages.
- Familiarity with storage and data processing systems, cloud infrastructure, and other technical tools.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills and ability to iterate quickly with teammates, incorporating feedback and holding a high bar for quality.
Skills
Java, Rust, Go, Cassandra, Elasticsearch, Kafka, Kubernetes, Spark, Flink, Gradle, Python, C++
Similar jobs
DevOps / SRE jobs
Coinbase
United States
Designs and operates foundational developer-infrastructure services for CI, builds, deployments, and testing. The role requires senior-level systems engineering, end-to-end service ownership, and cross-functional technical leadership.
Cloudflare
London, United Kingdom
Build and maintain Cloudflare’s deployment platform, enabling progressive rollouts, health-mediated releases, and automated workflows at scale. The role requires at least four years of software development experience, backend and frontend experience, and comfort with rapid delivery and on-call support.
Granica
Remote
Build and operate cloud infrastructure, Kubernetes platforms, CI/CD systems, and observability for exabyte-scale data systems and reliable enterprise AI workloads. The role requires 5+ years of infrastructure, platform, or distributed systems experience and strong programming and cloud skills.
Baseten
San Francisco, CA
Leads global GPU capacity management across acquisition, orchestration, infrastructure automation, and incident response. The role requires 5+ years of experience, deep Kubernetes expertise, production Go or Python skills, and the ability to balance reliability with unit economics.
Teleport
United States
Build IT workflow automation and security tooling using Go, Temporal, Kubernetes, Terraform, and shell scripting. The role also supports internal IT systems and integrations across endpoint management, identity, access, and security administration.