Akamai Technologies develops cloud-based services that help organizations protect, deliver, and optimize their digital experiences. Its work spans cybersecurity capabilities such as API security and DDoS protection, alongside cloud computing and content delivery technologies designed to improve the reliability and performance of web applications. The company’s distributed infrastructure supports businesses managing secure, high-performing online services at global scale.
Principal Software Engineer, Distributed Cloud Control Plane
Lead the design of VM placement, reconciliation, and orchestration for Akamai’s distributed cloud and edge platform. Build scalable compute control-plane systems.
United States$169,300 – $304,700 / year
RemoteFull-timeSeniorEnglish RequiredFull-stack EngineerSoftware EngineerDescription
- Design the control plane that places, reconciles, and operates virtual machines across the compute fleet.
- Set database partitioning and sharding strategies to scale control-plane state management fivefold.
- Create capacity models for placement and inventory state.
- Lead placement reconciliation, including desired-state models, idempotent reconcilers, drift detection, and reconciliation-lag SLOs.
- Unify bulk and asynchronous operations through standard operation resources, batching, concurrency limits, and automatic stops at failure thresholds.
- Define consistency guarantees for each data path.
- Apply idempotency and fencing to controller actions.
- Design saga-style workflows.
Requirements
- Bring at least 12 years of experience building distributed systems, including ownership of control planes, large-scale orchestration, or equivalent systems.
- Have deep SQL database experience, including partitioning, sharding, replication, and online schema changes.
- Have experience building asynchronous systems with durable task queues, event-driven workflows, retries, and backpressure design.
- Have hands-on experience building and operating containerized applications, including Kubernetes.
- Be proficient in Python or Go.
- Experience with the second language or ColdFusion is a plus, but not required.
- Understand consistency concepts deeply, including leases, fencing, idempotency, and optimistic concurrency.
- Have hands-on experience with reconciliation or controller patterns, such as Kubernetes-style controllers or equivalent.
Benefits
- Annual bonus or other incentives
- Equity awards
- Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP)
- Healthcare coverage
- 401(k) savings plan
- Company holidays
- Paid time off for vacation
- Sick leave
- Parental leave
- Employee assistance program
- Mental and financial wellness support
- Flexible work options: home, office, or a combination of both