Staff Software Engineer, Edge

About the role

The Edge team manages the critical infrastructure connecting over 600 million users to Pinterest, including CDN, DNS, TLS, and ingress/egress proxy fleets. We are seeking a Staff Software Engineer to lead the evolution of our rate limiting platform and spearhead strategies for managing automated traffic such as bots and crawlers.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Architect Edge systems by integrating in-house solutions, open-source tools like Envoy proxy, and multiple CDN and DNS providers.
• Develop and execute a roadmap for managing automation traffic, including bot and crawler mitigation at scale.
• Write and maintain request processing logic in C++, Golang, and Python to support routing, traffic classification, and enforcement.
• Partner with internal platform teams and external CDN vendors to establish integration points.
• Analyze internal user requirements for rate limiting and translate them into actionable technical plans.
• Provide technical mentorship through design reviews, pair programming, and coaching.
• Incorporate AI tools to improve prototyping, operational analysis, and code generation while maintaining high standards for production readiness.
• Manage on-call responsibilities, including incident response, reliability improvements, and post-mortem analysis.

Requirements

• 6+ years of professional experience in platform, networking, or infrastructure engineering with a focus on traffic management (load balancing, service mesh, HTTP gateways, or CDN).
• Proficiency in C++, Golang, or Python, with direct experience developing L7 HTTP proxies like Envoy, Traefik, Varnish, or Nginx.
• Comprehensive knowledge of network protocols across the L3-L7 stack and experience troubleshooting large-scale networking issues.
• Demonstrated ability to design distributed systems from initial proposal through proof of concept to production.
• Experience gathering cross-functional requirements and driving technical alignment.
• Bachelor, Master, or PhD in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• Proven track record of using AI to accelerate engineering workflows with a clear methodology for validating output quality.

Nice to have

• Experience with scraping prevention, bot detection, or managing automation traffic systems.

Skills & tools

• C++, Golang, Python
• Envoy, Nginx, Varnish, Traefik
• CDN, DNS, TLS, L3-L7 Networking
• Distributed Systems Architecture

Practical notes

• This role is remote, though it requires in-person attendance for collaboration 1-2 times every 6 months.
• Relocation assistance is not provided for this position.
• Final compensation is determined by factors including location, skills, and experience.