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Software Engineer - Distributed Systems

Location
San Francisco, CA • New York, NY • United States
Compensation
$153k–$376k/yr
Level
senior
Type
full time · Remote

Posted by employer 1 year ago

First seen on Joblaze 6 months ago

Last verified on the company career page 20 hours ago

Requirements

Experience
5+ years

Not disclosed in this posting: visa sponsorship.

Benefits

401k Match Learning & Development Stipend Equity/Stock Options Generous PTO Cell Phone Reimbursement Health Insurance Work from Home Stipend Parental Leave Mental Health Benefits

Joblaze summary

In this role, the Software Engineer will focus on designing, building, and maintaining the infrastructure that supports Figma's collaborative design tools. Key skills include expertise in distributed systems, cloud-native environments, and proficiency in programming languages like Go and Python. This position is ideal for seasoned engineers with a strong background in backend or infrastructure engineering who are eager to tackle complex challenges. Figma's fast-paced environment offers the chance to influence the technical foundation of a widely used design platform.

Joblaze insights

  • Listed about 6 months ago — first seen on Joblaze April 14, 2026. Last confirmed on Figma's careers page October 29, 2026.
  • Salary band is below the typical range for Backend roles (median ~$180,000).
  • Starts above 20% of 159 comparable senior backend roles in United States that list Python we track (median $173,000 across 64 companies). See Python salary trends
  • Python appears in 41.1% of 518 comparable senior backend roles in United States; S3 appears in 1.4% of 518 comparable senior backend roles in United States.

Quick facts

Is the Software Engineer - Distributed Systems role remote?
Yes — Figma lists this as a fully remote position.
What's the salary range?
Figma lists $153,000–$376,000 for this role.
How much experience is required?
At least 5 years of relevant experience for this Software Engineer - Distributed Systems role.
What's the tech stack?
Joblaze extracted these technologies from the posting: AWS, Azure, CI/CD, DynamoDB, GCP, Go.
What seniority level is this role?
Figma targets senior candidates for this position.
Is this full-time or contract?
Full-time for this Software Engineer - Distributed Systems role at Figma.

From the original posting

Figma is growing our team of passionate creatives and builders on a mission to make design accessible to all. Figma’s platform helps teams bring ideas to life—whether you're brainstorming, creating a prototype, translating designs into code, or iterating with AI. From idea to product, Figma empowers teams to streamline workflows, move faster, and work together in real time from anywhere in the world. If you're excited to shape the future of design and collaboration, join us!

At Figma, infrastructure is at the heart of everything we build. As a Software Engineer on our Infrastructure team, you’ll help design, build, and operate the systems that power our real-time collaborative design tools used by millions of people worldwide. We’re scaling fast, and we’re looking for experienced distributed systems engineers across a variety of teams. Whether you’re passionate about storage, compute orchestration, developer tooling, networking, or real-time data systems, this role offers an opportunity to shape the technical foundation of one of the most beloved design platforms in the world.

What you’ll do at Figma:

  • Design, build, and maintain scalable and reliable infrastructure systems that support product innovation and user collaboration at scale
  • Architect and evolve distributed systems including storage platforms, streaming infrastructure, and compute orchestration
  • Improve developer experience by building internal platforms, CI/CD systems, build tools, and APIs
  • Collaborate across product and infrastructure teams to design secure, maintainable, and performant systems
  • Participate in shaping platform strategy, roadmaps, and engineering best practices across the organization
  • Debug and resolve complex production issues that span services and layers of the stack
  • Mentor engineers and foster a culture of collaboration, inclusivity, and technical excellence

We’d love to hear from you if you have:

  • 5+ years of Software Engineering experience, specifically in backend or infrastructure engineering
  • Deep understanding of distributed systems concepts such as sharding, replication, consistency, and eventual convergence
  • Experience with cloud-native environments (AWS, GCP, or Azure), infrastructure-as-code, and container orchestration
  • Proficiency in languages such as Go, TypeScript, Python, Rust, or Ruby
  • Strong system design skills and a track record of architecting resilient production systems
  • Excellent communication skills, with experience collaborating across teams and mentoring others

While it’s not required, it’s an added plus if you also have:

  • Experience scaling storage platforms (e.g., Postgres, Redis, S3, DynamoDB) or operating streaming systems like Kafka
  • Background in traffic management, DDoS mitigation, or service mesh technologies (e.g., Envoy, Istio)
  • A history of developing complex, realtime distributed systems at scale
  • A passion for building developer productivity tools, including development environments, CI/CD pipelines, and build systems
  • Experience with evolving large-scale, shared developer platforms to improve reliability and developer velocity
  • Strong problem-solving skills and a bias for action—especially when tackling high-impact, gritty challenges
  • Experience using AI-assisted development tools (e.g., GitHub Copilot, ChatGPT, Claude) to write, debug, and optimize code
At Figma, one of our values is Grow as you go. We believe in hiring smart, curious people who are excited to learn and develop their skills. If you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with the points outlined in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyways. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.

Pay Transparency Disclosure

Annual Base Salary Range:
$153,000—$376,000 USD

At Figma we celebrate and support our differences. We know employing a team rich in diverse thoughts, experiences, and opinions allows our employees, our product and our community to flourish. Figma is an equal opportunity workplace - we are dedicated to equal employment opportunities regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity/expression, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements.

Standard company text repeated across Figma's postings is omitted here.

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