Sr. Principal Engineer - Infrastructure Engineering - Fastly : Job Details

Overview

Join to apply for the Sr. Principal Engineer - Infrastructure Engineering role at Fastly.

Fastly helps people stay better connected with the things they love. Fastly's edge cloud platform enables customers to create great digital experiences quickly, securely, and reliably by processing, serving, and securing our customers' applications as close to their end-users as possible — at the edge of the Internet. The platform is designed to take advantage of the modern internet, to be programmable, and to support agile software development. Fastly's customers include many of the world's most prominent companies, including Vimeo, Pinterest, The New York Times, and GitHub.

We're building a more trustworthy Internet. Come join us.

Posting Open Date: Aug. 15, 2025

Anticipated Posting Close Date: Sept. 15, 2025

• Job posting may close early due to the volume of applicants.

What You'll Do

Are you ready to define the architecture that keeps Fastly's edge software performant, deployable, observable, and secure across every environment we operate? Our Infrastructure Engineering organization is responsible for the systems that make this possible. As a Senior Principal Engineer, you will set technical strategy, work with standard bodies and lead cross-functional initiatives that scale Fastly's technology stack to support new partnerships with ISPs while upholding stringent reliability and security standards with minimal impact to performance.

As a key member of the Engineering Leadership team at Fastly, you will be hands-on in critical areas of the code and model the highest level of engineering excellence for members of the engineering team. You will also act in concert with the greater network and edge industry to establish standards that grow the internet for new workloads and topologies.

• Lead full lifecycle projects from architecture & design to deployment in support of Fastly's edge systems.
• Write, test, and deploy C, Rust, and Go code.
• Maintain a broad understanding of how critical systems work together — your work will span scaling our edge platform on different infrastructures, integrating the edge in a variety of environments and collaborating with the industry.
• Design, evolve and implement critical systems and features with a focus on performance, resilience and scalability.
• Anticipate where and when systems will need to be adapted to meet our growth needs.
• Articulate technical strategy via design documents.
• Sequence the technical building blocks required to enable durable innovation.
• Guide, share knowledge, and lead teams toward implementing cross functional systems.
• Enable outcome driven, collaborative discussions utilizing the deep technical knowledge of the teams you work with.
• Mentor and support the professional growth of engineers, fostering a culture of respect, knowledge sharing, innovation, and collaboration within the team.
• Lead by example. Be an active implementer and team member.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams and stakeholders to shape a clear technical roadmap - prioritizing key initiatives and proactively identifying and mitigating risks - to deploy, support, troubleshoot, and deliver features to customers.
• Help guide and debug the organization to successfully implement the vision.
• Partner with Sr Engineering leaders to build and execute in both internal and open source contexts.

What We're Looking For

• Proven ability to design & implement complex, reliable, and highly efficient systems. Most Senior Principal Engineers at Fastly have at least 12 years of domain relevant engineering experience.
• Recent experience developing complex applications in C, C++, Rust, and/or Go, with an aptitude for learning new languages.
• Experience leading development of new technologies that contribute to open source communities or setting standards through IETF, SVTA, or similar bodies.
• A demonstrated positive collaboration with external vendors, partners, or customers on complex solutions.
• Proven experience building systems that can be easily and reliability operated.
• A leader who can balance the benefits from collaboration with the risks of “design by committee” or autocratic decision-making.
• Experience operating business-critical systems with high uptime requirements.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to clearly articulate complex technical concepts for varying audiences and produce clear and comprehensive documentation.
• A collaborative mindset with experience working across cross-functional teams, fostering a culture of respect, knowledge sharing and innovation.
• Proven ability to mentor and support the growth of engineers, both within a specific area of expertise and more broadly.

Nice-to-Have

• Experience developing or maintaining orchestration software for large complex environments.
• Understanding of security concerns in multi-tenant systems including QEMU.
• Developed or supported in a zero-trust environment including secure boot, attestations.
• Experience either developing or supporting Linux Kernel.
• Knowledge of network protocols & functions: BGP, TCP, routing, transport.
• Passion for modernizing software while ensuring continued functionality.

Work Hours

This position will require you to be available during core business hours and occasional nights and weekends as required for on-call rotation.

Work Location(s) & Travel Requirements

This position is open to Hybrid And Remote Work Locations. The preferred locations for this position are:

• San Francisco, CA
• New York, NY
• Denver, CO

Fastly currently embraces a largely hybrid model for most roles which allows employees flexibility to split their time between the office and home. There is a strong preference for Hybrid near a local office. However, we may be willing to consider exceptionally qualified remote candidates within the US and Canada. This position will require travel as required by your role or requested by your manager, usually to San Francisco, CA or other office locations.

Seniority level

Mid-Senior level

Employment type

Full-time

Job function

Software Development

Why Fastly?

• We have a huge impact. Fastly is a small company with a big reach. We support a growing number of open source projects and initiatives.
• We love distributed teams. We have offices and employees around the globe; new hires can participate in orientation in San Francisco.
• We value diversity and strive to create an inclusive environment.
• We are passionate about our people and culture.

We're always looking for humble, sharp, and creative folks to join the Fastly team. If you think you might be a fit please apply!

A fully completed application and resume or CV are required when applying.

Fastly is committed to ensuring equal employment opportunity and to providing employees with a safe and welcoming work environment free of discrimination and harassment. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, family or parental status, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances. Consistent with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and federal or state disability laws, Fastly will provide reasonable accommodations for applicants and employees with disabilities. If reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and/or to receive other benefits and privileges of employment, please contact your Recruiter, or the Fastly Employee Relations team at [email protected] or 501-###-####. Fastly collects and processes personal data submitted by job applicants in accordance with our Privacy Policy. Please see our privacy notice for job applicants.

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