Staff Software Engineer, Messaging Infrastructure – San Francisco, CA

📌 Job Title: Staff Software Engineer – Messaging Infrastructure

📍 Location: San Francisco, CA (Remote eligible – U.S.)
🏢 Department: Infrastructure Engineering
🕒 Employment Type: Full-Time

🧭 About Reddit

Reddit is home to the most authentic conversations on the internet, built around passion, trust, and shared interests. With over 100,000+ active communities and 101M+ daily active users, Reddit remains one of the most visited platforms globally. Our mission is to bring community and belonging to everyone in the world.

We are hiring a Staff Software Engineer to join our Messaging Infrastructure team, focused on building scalable, reliable, and efficient systems that power Reddit’s internal and external communication layers.

🛠️ Key Responsibilities

As a Staff Engineer on the Messaging Infrastructure team, your work will sit at the critical intersection of infrastructure and software engineering. You’ll:

• Design and implement infrastructure for Kafka orchestration and multi-cloud deployments using Kubernetes.
• Develop automated tooling for managing Kafka clusters, including provisioning, scaling, and replication management.
• Build APIs and Kubernetes controllers to support robust Kafka operations at scale.
• Champion and promote event-driven architecture adoption across Reddit.
• Create developer-friendly solutions like GitOps tooling, schema registries, ACL management, and Kafka interaction utilities.
• Influence and contribute to the strategic vision of asynchronous communication systems.
• Collaborate across engineering, product, and operations to ensure reliability and scalability of messaging systems.
• Share on-call responsibilities to maintain platform health and respond to incidents.
• Mentor junior engineers and lead by example in adopting best practices for infrastructure development.

🧠 What We’re Looking For

• 7+ years of experience building scalable, internet-facing software systems.
• Proven expertise with Kafka or similar event-streaming platforms.
• Strong understanding of asynchronous communication patterns and distributed systems.
• Hands-on experience deploying services on Kubernetes. Bonus for experience with Kubernetes controller/operator development.
• Ability to troubleshoot and optimize complex infrastructure.
• A self-starter with excellent technical judgment and strong collaboration skills.
• Experience driving or supporting large-scale service migrations and architecture shifts.
• Demonstrated experience mentoring engineers and leading technical projects.

🌍 Why Join Reddit?

• Be part of a team building critical messaging infrastructure that powers Reddit’s massive global footprint.
• Work with passionate engineers solving challenging problems at scale.
• Contribute directly to architecture that enables community engagement across one of the internet’s most beloved platforms.

🎁 Compensation & Benefits

• Base Salary Range: $206,700 – $289,400 USD
• Eligible for equity (RSUs)
• 401(k) with employer match
• Comprehensive healthcare (medical, dental, vision)
• Family planning and gender-affirming care support
• Mental health and coaching services
• Generous PTO, flexible holidays, and paid parental leave
• Paid volunteer time off
• #LI-Remote #LI-JS5

🤝 Diversity & Inclusion

Reddit is committed to building a workforce as diverse as its user base. We provide reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities and strive for a fair, inclusive hiring process. Our goal is to create an environment where everyone feels empowered to bring their full self to work.