Senior Principal Engineer - Infrastructure Engineering

Summary

Join Fastly as a Senior Principal Engineer in Infrastructure Engineering and lead the architecture that ensures Fastly's edge software remains performant, deployable, observable, and secure across all operational environments. You will define technical strategy, collaborate with standard bodies, and spearhead cross-functional initiatives to scale Fastly's technology stack, supporting new ISP partnerships while adhering to stringent reliability and security standards. As a key member of the Engineering Leadership team, you will actively contribute to critical code areas, model engineering excellence, and work with the broader network and edge industry to establish standards for evolving internet workloads and topologies. This role involves leading full lifecycle projects, writing and deploying code in C, Rust, and Go, maintaining a broad understanding of critical systems, designing and implementing systems focused on performance, resilience, and scalability, and anticipating future system adaptation needs. You will also mentor and support the professional growth of engineers, fostering a collaborative and innovative team culture.

Requirements

• Proven ability to design & implement complex, reliable, and highly efficient systems. Most Senior Principal Engineers at Fastly have at least 12 years of domain relevant engineering experience
• Recent experience developing complex applications in C, C++, Rust, and/or Go, with an aptitude for learning new languages
• Experience leading development of new technologies that contribute to open source communities or setting standards through IETF, SVTA, or similar bodies
• A demonstrated positive collaboration with external vendors, partners, or customers on complex solutions
• Proven experience building systems that can be easily and reliability operated
• A leader who can balance the benefits from collaboration with the risks of “design by committee” or autocratic decision-making
• Experience operating business-critical systems with high uptime requirements
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to clearly articulate complex technical concepts for varying audiences and produce clear and comprehensive documentation
• A collaborative mindset with experience working across cross-functional teams, fostering a culture of respect, knowledge sharing and innovation
• Proven ability to mentor and support the growth of engineers, both within a specific area of expertise and more broadly

Responsibilities

• Lead full lifecycle projects from architecture & design to deployment in support of Fastly’s edge systems
• Write, test, and deploy C, Rust, and Go code
• Maintain a broad understanding of how critical systems work together - your work will span everything from scaling our edge platform on different infrastructures, integrating the edge in a variety of environments and collaborating with the industry
• Design, evolve and implement critical systems and features with a focus on performance, resilience and scalability
• Anticipate where and when systems will need to be adapted to meet our growth needs
• Articulate technical strategy via design documents
• Sequence the technical building blocks required to enable durable innovation
• Guide, share knowledge, and lead teams toward implementing cross functional systems
• Enable outcome driven, collaborative discussions utilizing the deep technical knowledge of the teams you work with
• Mentor and support the professional growth of engineers, fostering a culture of respect, knowledge sharing, innovation, and collaboration within the team
• Lead by example. Be an active implementer and team member
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams and stakeholders to shape a clear technical roadmap - prioritizing key initiatives and proactively identifying and mitigating risks - to deploy, support, troubleshoot, and deliver features to customers
• Help guide and debug the organization to successfully implement the vision
• Partner with Sr Engineering leaders to build and execute in both internal & open source contexts

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience developing or maintaining orchestration software for large complex environments
• Understanding of security concerns in multi-tenant systems including QEMU
• Developed or supported in a zero-trust environment including secure boot, attestations
• Experience either developing or supporting Linux Kernel
• Knowledge of network protocols & functions: BGP, TCP, routing, transport
• Passion for modernizing software while ensuring continued functionality

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance
• Family planning, mental health support along with Employee Assistance Program
• Insurance (Life, Disability, and Accident)
• A Flexible Vacation policy and up to 18 days of accrued paid sick leave
• 401(k) (including company match)
• An Employee Stock Purchase Program
• 11 paid local holidays
• 11 paid company wellness days