Staff Platform Engineer

Summary

Join Customer.io's growing Engineering team as a Staff Platform Engineer! You will architect and build scalable, distributed systems in Go, lead design discussions, influence the technical roadmap, and drive large-scale architectural decisions. Responsibilities include enhancing inter-service communication, developing infrastructure automation, implementing observability strategies, mentoring engineers, and collaborating across teams. This role requires expertise in distributed systems, Go programming, cloud infrastructure, Kubernetes, and infrastructure as code. Customer.io offers a competitive salary, unlimited PTO, paid parental leave, comprehensive health insurance, 401k matching, and various other benefits.

Requirements

• Expertise in distributed systems architecture, including consensus algorithms, CAP theorem, eventual consistency, and leader election
• Strong proficiency in Go (or another strongly typed language like Java, Rust, or Kotlin) with experience building high-performance services
• Deep knowledge of cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and best practices for scalability, networking, and security
• Hands-on experience with Kubernetes, Docker, and container orchestration tools
• Proficiency in infrastructure as code (Terraform, Pulumi, or CloudFormation) to automate cloud-based deployments
• Experience working with event-driven architectures, messaging systems (Kafka, NATS, RabbitMQ), and real-time data processing
• Passion for automation, with experience designing and implementing CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions, ArgoCD, Jenkins)
• Strong understanding of observability and debugging techniques, including monitoring, logging, and distributed tracing
• Excellent problem-solving skills, with the ability to diagnose and resolve complex system issues efficiently
• Proven track record of leadership, mentoring engineers, driving best practices, and influencing engineering culture
• 10+ years of experience in software engineering, with a focus on distributed systems, backend infrastructure, or platform engineering
• 5+ years of experience designing and deploying large-scale distributed architectures in cloud environments
• Demonstrated ability to lead and influence technical decisions across multiple teams
• Proven experience designing and optimizing APIs and service-to-service communication patterns (gRPC, REST, GraphQL)
• Deep experience with databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL, DynamoDB, or BigTable) and performance tuning strategies
• A security-first mindset, ensuring best practices for authentication, authorization, and data protection
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to present complex technical concepts to diverse audiences
• A DevOps mindset, embracing automation, testing, and continuous delivery
• Passion for mentoring and growing engineers, fostering an environment of collaboration and knowledge sharing

Responsibilities

• Architect and build highly scalable, distributed systems in Go that handle mission-critical workloads
• Lead design discussions and set best practices for fault tolerance, system reliability, and performance optimization
• Influence the technical roadmap by identifying key opportunities for innovation and improvement
• Drive large-scale architectural decisions, ensuring the platform is built for growth and operational excellence
• Enhance inter-service communication by improving RPC frameworks, event-driven architectures, and data pipelines
• Develop infrastructure automation to streamline deployments, monitoring, and scaling using Kubernetes, Terraform, and CI/CD tooling
• Implement and refine observability strategies, leveraging tools like OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, and distributed tracing
• Mentor and support engineers, fostering a culture of technical excellence and continuous learning
• Collaborate across teams, influencing product, security, and infrastructure decisions to align with long-term company goals

Benefits

• Unlimited PTO - we encourage at least 20 vacation days (in addition to holidays and sick days) so that you can unwind, unplug, and recharge
• 16 weeks paid parental leave (including adoption and foster care)
• 100% paid insurance premiums for you and your dependents
• 401k retirement matching - up to 5% dollar-for-dollar match to retirement contributions
• $1,500 annual healthy lifestyle budget (for gym memberships, classes, fitness equipment)
• $250/monthly Remote Work Stipend to be used for home internet, cell phone, and other miscellaneous remote work costs
• $300/month co-working space rental reimbursement
• $2,000/yearly professional education budget for conferences, courses, workshops, books, etc
• $1,500 home office budget to make sure your working space is ergonomic and just what you need to do your best work!
• One month sabbatical after five years at Customer.io
• We also have opportunities to meet in person with your peers throughout the year