Principal Engineer (Distributed Systems)

The mission of Arkose Labs is to create an online environment where all consumers are protected from online spam and abuse. Recognized by G2 as the 2025 Leader in Bot Detection and Mitigation, with the highest score in customer satisfaction and largest market presence four quarters running, Arkose Labs offers the world's first $1M warranties for credential stuffing and SMS toll fraud. With 20% of our customers being Fortune 500 companies, our AI-powered platform combines powerful risk assessments with dynamic threat response to undermine the strategy of attack, all while improving good user throughput. Headquartered in San Mateo, CA, with employees in London, Costa Rica, Australia, India, and Argentina. Arkose Labs protects enterprises from cybercrime and abuse.

Arkose Labs is scaling rapidly, and we’re transforming our engineering team to meet the challenges of hyper-growth. We’re looking for a Principal Engineer to lead the evolution of our product architecture, with a focus on stream processing and cloud-native distributed systems. If you’re passionate about tackling complex engineering challenges, driving scalable design decisions, and mentoring teams to success, this is the role for you.

What You’ll Do

• Architect for Scale: Lead the design and evolution of Arkose’s product architecture, focusing on stream processing and distributed systems to handle high-volume data at scale.
• Deliver Impact: Collaborate with engineering, product, and leadership teams to ensure alignment on technical designs and business goals.
• Be a Technical Authority: Gain deep knowledge of our product, data flows, and customer use cases to guide architecture decisions with performance, cost, and reliability in mind.
• Lead and Mentor: Provide technical leadership across product areas, mentor engineers at all levels, and foster a culture of innovation and collaboration.
• Drive Execution: Take ownership of critical projects, independently driving them to completion while maintaining the highest standards of quality and scalability.
• Innovate Strategically: Bring creativity and a customer-focused approach to influence the strategic direction of our technology and products.

What We’re Looking For

• Extensive Experience: 15+ years in software engineering (or 12+ with a Master’s degree), including cloud-native application development and distributed systems at web scale.
• Technical Expertise:
  • Hands-on experience with stream processing frameworks like Apache Flink.
  • Proficiency in Go (Python familiarity is a plus).
  • Strong understanding of web/HTTP protocols, DNS, TLS, browser caching, and CDNs (e.g., Cloudflare, CloudFront).
• Leadership:
  • Proven track record of leading large-scale SaaS product architectures and delivering exceptional business outcomes.
  • Demonstrated ability to mentor senior engineers and elevate team performance.
• Strategic Thinker: Adept at balancing high-level business needs with deep technical decisions.
• Deployment Knowledge: Familiarity with A/B testing, blue-green environments, and canary deployments.
• Full SDLC Expertise: Deep experience across architectural reviews, technical design, implementation, CI/CD, and testing.

Nice to Have

• Advanced proficiency in Go.
• Experience in cybersecurity or fraud prevention technologies.

Why Arkose Labs?

At Arkose Labs, our technology-driven approach enables us to make a substantial impact in the industry, supported by a robust customer base consisting of global enterprise giants such as Microsoft, Roblox, OpenAI, and more. We’re not just a company; we’re a collaborative ecosystem where you will actively partner with these influential brands, tackling the most demanding technical challenges to safeguard hundreds of millions of users across the globe.

Why do top tech professionals choose Arkose Labs?

• Cutting-Edge Technology: Our high-efficacy solutions, backed by solid warranties, attract leading, global enterprise clients.
• Innovation and Excellence: We foster a culture that emphasizes technological innovation and the pursuit of excellence, ensuring a balanced and thriving work environment.
• Experienced Leadership: Guided by seasoned executives with deep tech expertise and a history of successful growth and equity events.
• Ideal Size: We’re structured to be agile and adaptable, large enough to provide stability, yet small enough to value your voice and ideas.

Join us in shaping the future of technology. At Arkose Labs, you’re not just an employee; you’re part of a visionary team driving global change

The most recognizable brands in the world select Arkose Labs, including OpenAI, Roblox, Microsoft, Adobe, Expedia, Snapchat, Zilch, and ZipAir.

We value your unique contributions, perspectives, and experiences. Be part of a diverse and high-performing environment that prioritizes collaboration, excellence, and inclusion. We hire the best, focus on their professional development, and offer support for continuing education.

We value:

• People - independent thinkers making data-driven decisions and taking project ownership
• Teamwork - building trust, respect, and integrity to openly communicate and constructively challenge one another
• Customer Focus - customer empathy and problem-solving obsession
• Execution - actions with precision, professionalism, and urgency
• Security - our lens for implementing processes, procedures, and programs

Benefits:

• Competitive salary + Equity
• 401k plan 
• Robust benefits package- 85% medical, dental, vision coverage for employees and 75% for dependents
• Flexible PTO
• Life insurance coverage
• Short and Long Term Disability Insurance paid by the company
• Generous nationwide parental leave policy
• Amazing discounts program 
• Wellbeing package including mental health and gym discounts
• Flexible working hours to support personal well-being and mental health
• Employee Assistance Program

Arkose Labs is an Equal Opportunity Employer that makes employment decisions without regard to race, color, religious creed, national origin, ancestry, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, age, mental or physical disability, medical condition, military or veteran status, citizenship, marital status, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. In addition, Arkose Labs will provide reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities.

The anticipated salary range for this position is $250,000.00 - 290,000.00. Equity and benefits may be provided as part of the compensation package, depending on the position offered. Not all candidates will be eligible for the upper end of the salary range. The exact salary will ultimately depend on multiple factors, which may include the successful candidate’s skills, experience, and other qualifications as well as the candidate’s location of residence. In addition to base salary, some roles may be eligible for a variable bonus based on a combination of company performance, employee performance, and management discretion.

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