Principal Software Engineer - Compute (Kubernetes)

Overview

Principal Software Engineer in the Compute organization to provide technical leadership for Roblox's Kubernetes infrastructure, driving the evolution of a platform that powers global scale operations across on-prem and public cloud fleets.

What you'll do

• Set the long-term architectural strategy for a Kubernetes ecosystem managing thousands of nodes and supporting millions of concurrent requests.
• Think deeply about how internal customers consume and interact with compute, designing intuitive interfaces and tooling that simplify consumption of complex infrastructure services.
• Leverage deep expertise in Kubernetes internals, including custom controllers, operators, API server architecture, and etcd, to solve complex scaling bottlenecks and optimize the control plane.
• Architect robust security, isolation, and identity solutions that allow diverse workloads to safely coexist at scale.
• Lead the design of advanced automation, observability, and self-healing systems that minimize MTTR and maintain world-class uptime for the global compute fleet.
• Partner with engineering leadership to define the technical roadmap, balancing feature velocity against platform integrity.
• Foster a culture of technical excellence across the Compute organization through architectural reviews, code standards, and active mentorship of senior and staff-level engineers.

What you'll need

• 10+ years of experience building and operating large-scale distributed systems, platform engineering, or cloud infrastructure.
• Demonstrated expertise in Kubernetes internals, with a track record of modifying or extending the Kubernetes ecosystem (custom controllers, operators, upstream contributions).
• A history of building and operating mission-critical infrastructure platforms that serve thousands of nodes or high-throughput, low-latency microservices.
• Deep understanding of cloud-native security practices, identity solutions, and container networking.
• Proven track record as a technical anchor, with the ability to communicate complex concepts, influence cross-functional stakeholders, and lead initiatives across multiple teams.

Details

• Location: San Mateo, CA, United States (headquarters).
• Work mode: onsite Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, with optional presence on Monday and Friday.
• Annual base salary range: $345,040 to $399,420 USD. Actual base pay depends on factors such as professional background, training, work experience, location, business needs and market demand.
• Full-time employees are eligible for equity compensation and benefits.
• For US-based roles only: the Company may not be able to employ candidates who have United States work authorization related to certain U.S. visa categories, or support future H-1B sponsorship at this time.