Staff Engineer - Distributed Systems

Summary

Join Zyte, a globally distributed team passionate about data, and work remotely from anywhere in the world. As a highly experienced engineer, you will architect and optimize high-performance distributed systems at a massive scale (100K QPS), spanning multiple cloud environments, on-prem data centers, and edge devices. You will own the entire software development lifecycle, from design and implementation to deployment and maintenance. Collaborate with cross-functional teams, mentor junior engineers, and champion best practices in performance, observability, and reliability. Zyte offers a remote-first culture, flexible schedules, and opportunities for continuous growth and development within a vibrant community of data enthusiasts.

Requirements

• 10+ years of experience building large-scale, high-load, distributed systems
• Proficient in Java, C++, or Rust, with a strong understanding of networking protocols (TCP, HTTP, WebSockets) and event-driven architectures (Netty, Vert.x, etc.)
• Hands-on with Linux and containerisation, comfortable deploying containerized services at scale
• Problem Solver & Debugger: You relish the challenge of tackling complex issues in production and can dissect them methodically
• Remote Team Player: Excellent communicator who thrives in a distributed, asynchronous environment
• Curious Hacker: Driven by an insatiable desire to learn, explore, and try new tools/techniques

Responsibilities

• Architect at Scale
• Design distributed systems that operate at global scale, spanning OCI, GCP, on-prem data centers, and even edge devices that run code within minimal footprint
• Dig Into Performance
• Optimize services written in Java, Python, Rust, and Node.js to handle massive throughput
• Tweak networking protocols, memory usage, and concurrency models to push the limits of what’s possible
• Own the Full Lifecycle
• From brainstorming features to shipping production code, you’ll be involved in every phase—design, implementation, testing, deployment, and beyond
• Collaborate Across Teams
• Partner with platform, product, and data science teams to deliver seamless solutions
• You’ll also coach and mentor fellow engineers, sharing your expertise in scalable architecture
• Champion Best Practices
• Drive continuous improvements in performance, observability, and reliability
• Advocate for testing, code quality, and robust DevOps practices

Preferred Qualifications

• Browser Internals: Experience digging into Chrome DevTools, WebAssembly, or general browser architecture
• Web Scraping Knowledge: Familiarity with the intricacies of crawling and scraping large volumes of data
• Open Source Contributor: History of contributing to or maintaining projects relevant to distributed systems or data extraction
• Functional Programming: Background in Scala, Erlang, or Haskell

Benefits

Freedom & Flexibility: We’re 100% remote, with flexible schedules and a culture of trust