Staff Software Engineer - Site Defense

About the Client

The organization operates one of the largest online platforms built on shared interests and community engagement. It hosts over 100,000 active communities and attracts approximately 130 million daily active unique visitors. The platform focuses on enabling open and authentic conversations, serving as a major source of information on the internet. The Infrastructure teams maintain foundational systems that manage request routing, service communication, traffic flow, and protection against network threats such as DDoS attacks and automated abuse.

About the Opportunity

The Staff Software Engineer - Site Defense role involves designing and managing critical infrastructure to protect the platform at internet scale. This position is crucial for defending against large-scale network threats like DDoS attacks, bots, and automated abuse by developing high-scale, low-latency security systems. The role impacts the security and stability of the platform by integrating distributed systems, networking, security measures, and applied machine learning.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain systems that defend against DDoS attacks, bots, and automated abuse.
• Develop and enhance ingress-level defenses across CDN, edge, and internal infrastructure.
• Create systems to detect, score, and mitigate malicious traffic on a per-request and per-user basis in real time.
• Collaborate with Infrastructure, Security, and Safety teams to balance security, performance, and user experience.
• Mentor junior engineers to support their professional development.
• Contribute to machine learning initiatives for traffic classification, bot detection, and anomaly detection.
• Own services end-to-end, including design, implementation, on-call duties, and operational excellence.
• Participate in incident response and post-incident analysis for large-scale network or abuse events.

Requirements

• At least 7 years of experience building and operating high-throughput, low-latency distributed systems.
• Proficiency in one or more general-purpose programming languages such as Python, Go, Rust, Java, or C++.
• Strong communication skills for effective collaboration within service-oriented teams.
• Experience with DDoS mitigation, web application firewalls, bot management, or abuse prevention systems.
• Solid understanding of networking fundamentals including HTTP, TLS, TCP/IP, proxies, CDNs, and load balancing.
• Experience with anti-abuse frameworks and bot scoring systems.
• Familiarity with browser fingerprinting technologies.
• Experience with machine learning systems in production, particularly real-time inference or feature pipelines.

Pay

Base salary range: $217,000 to $303,900 USD. Eligible for equity in the form of restricted stock units. May be eligible for commissions depending on the position. Comprehensive benefits package including medical, dental, vision insurance, and 401(k) with employer match.

Benefits

• Comprehensive healthcare benefits and income replacement programs.
• 401(k) plan with employer match.
• Global programs supporting workspace, professional development, and caregiving.
• Family planning support and gender-affirming care.
• Mental health and coaching benefits.
• Flexible vacation and paid volunteer time off.
• Generous paid parental leave.