Principal Software Engineer (Service Networking)
Posted
Summary
Leads technical direction and hands-on development of Roblox's service-to-service communication platform, guiding an Envoy- and Istio-based service mesh across Kubernetes, Nomad, and cloud environments while partnering with security and application teams on reliability, security, and efficiency.
- Roblox’s Service Networking team connects and secures the services behind our platform across our data centers and cloud infrastructure
- As a Principal Software Engineer on Service Networking, you will set technical direction and lead hands-on development of the systems that make service-to-service communication reliable, secure, and efficient
- You will guide the evolution of our Envoy- and Istio-based platform as services move across Kubernetes, Nomad, and cloud environments
- You will partner with Compute, Security, and application teams, and help senior engineers lead complex technical work
- Set the technical strategy and roadmap for service mesh, balancing reliability, security, performance, and operating cost
- Design and build control-plane and data-plane capabilities for service discovery, routing, load balancing, and traffic policy using Envoy, Istio, and related technologies
- Lead integration and migration across Kubernetes, Nomad, and cloud environments, with clear compatibility requirements and safe rollout plans
- Partner with Security and application teams to deliver workload identity, mutual TLS, and traffic policy enforcement in production
- Improve resource efficiency and operational reliability through performance analysis, testing, observability, incident response, and deployment automation
- Lead technical decisions across teams, write and review production code, and mentor senior engineers to expand their judgment and ownership
- A record of turning ambiguous problems into technical direction and coordinated execution, communicating tradeoffs clearly, and helping other engineers lead independently
- Experience operating Kubernetes or comparable orchestration platforms in production and leading infrastructure migrations or performance improvements. Envoy/Istio internals, xDS, workload identity, and substantive open-source contributions are especially relevant
- Expertise in service mesh, proxies, application gateways, or a closely related infrastructure domain, demonstrated through systems you have designed, shipped, and operated
- Strong programming skills in Go, C++, Rust, or another systems language, with experience debugging across application, proxy, control-plane, and operating-system boundaries
- 8+ years of software engineering experience building and operating large-scale distributed systems, including leading substantial initiatives across teams
- A strong understanding of networking fundamentals, service discovery, traffic management, failure isolation, and secure service communication