Staff Engineer - Distributed Systems - Remote

Why Zyte?

At Zyte, we don’t just collect data from the web—we chase down the toughest data challenges and make them look easy. We’re a globally distributed team that’s bold, curious, and always discovering new ways to deliver clean, valuable information from every corner of the internet.

• Data is our passion: We believe in unlocking access to open web data, empowering businesses, big and small to fuel everything from competitive intelligence to AI pipelines.
• Remote-first culture: Work from anywhere in the world. We’ve got over 250 Zytans in 28+ countries, each contributing their unique skills and perspective.
• Hacker and engineering mentality: We love the thrill of deep-diving into code, exploring new tech, and pushing boundaries. If you’ve got a knack for experimental problem-solving, and at the same time can deliver quickly production-grade solution to the budget, you’ll fit right in.
• Established system design framework:  Product and functional requirements are analyzed along with architectural solutions to enable informed decision-making.
• Real-world engineering challenges: Opportunities to implement communication protocols and deliver networking or orchestration services within budget constraints are rare.
• Strong product ownership: Work on a profitable and well-established product with market acceptance and growth potential which allows time and budget for research and new feature development.

Why This Role?

If you thrive on big technical puzzles—like building high-performance distributed systems that span multi-cloud, on-prem, and minimal-footprint apps on user devices—this role’s got your name written all over it. We’re scaling our Zyte API platform to 100K QPS, and we need an experienced engineer who enjoys cutting through complexity with elegant solutions. You’ll have the freedom to shape our architecture, mentor others, and drive critical decisions that impact thousands of customers.

What You’ll Do

• Architect at Scale
  Design distributed systems that operate at global scale, spanning OCI, GCP, on-prem data centers, and even edge devices that run code within minimal footprint.
• Dig Into Performance
  Optimize services written in Java, Python, Rust, and Node.js to handle massive throughput. Tweak networking protocols, memory usage, and concurrency models to push the limits of what’s possible.
• Own the Full Lifecycle
  From brainstorming features to shipping production code, you’ll be involved in every phase—design, implementation, testing, deployment, and beyond.
• Collaborate Across Teams
  Partner with platform, product, and data science teams to deliver seamless solutions. You’ll also coach and mentor fellow engineers, sharing your expertise in scalable architecture.
• Champion Best Practices
  Drive continuous improvements in performance, observability, and reliability. Advocate for testing, code quality, and robust DevOps practices.

Requirements

Who You Are

• 10+ years of experience building large-scale, high-load, distributed systems.
• Proficient in Java, C++, or Rust, with a strong understanding of networking protocols (TCP, HTTP, WebSockets) and event-driven architectures (Netty, Vert.x, etc.).
• Hands-on with Linux and containerisation, comfortable deploying containerized services at scale.
• Problem Solver & Debugger: You relish the challenge of tackling complex issues in production and can dissect them methodically.
• Remote Team Player: Excellent communicator who thrives in a distributed, asynchronous environment.
• Curious Hacker: Driven by an insatiable desire to learn, explore, and try new tools/techniques.

Our Tech Stack

• Languages: Java, Node.js, Python, Rust, C++
• Frameworks & Tools: Netty, Vert.x, Kafka, Docker, Kubernetes.
• Infrastructure: Multi-cloud (GCP, OCI) + on-prem, with an eye on the edge.
• Databases: RDBMS, NoSQL solutions, timeseries DBs.
• Monitoring & Observability: Prometheus, Grafana, ELK, and more.

Bonus Points

• Browser Internals: Experience digging into Chrome DevTools, WebAssembly, or general browser architecture.
• Web Scraping Knowledge: Familiarity with the intricacies of crawling and scraping large volumes of data.
• Open Source Contributor: History of contributing to or maintaining projects relevant to distributed systems or data extraction.

Functional Programming: Background in Scala, Erlang, or Haskell.

Benefits

Why Join Us?

• Impact at Scale: Your work will power mission-critical data pipelines for some of the biggest enterprises in the world.
• Freedom & Flexibility: We’re 100% remote, with flexible schedules and a culture of trust.
• Endless Growth: With data extraction evolving fast, there’s always a new problem to solve or an emerging technology to master.
• Vibrant Community: Collaborate with a friendly, diverse group of data enthusiasts and software wizards from every continent.

If you’re the kind of engineer who sees a challenge and can’t resist dissecting it to build something better, we want to hear from you. Bring your passion, bring your expertise, and help us push the boundaries of web data extraction at Zyte.