Distinguished Software Engineer

Circle

Confirmed live 2 days ago High trust

Remote

Quick summary

Work type: Remote
Location: San Francisco, CA
Salary: $285,000–$352,500 / yr
Posted: 4 days ago
Freshness: Confirmed live 2 days ago
Nearby: 99+ roles within 25 mi

Market check

Salary context

Above market

How this pay compares to similar roles

Similar $198k

This role $319k

$118k most similar roles pay here $378k

This role pays more than 91% of similar roles. Most pay $164,001–$231,311 — the shaded band above. At the midpoint, this role pays about $319k versus about $198k for comparable roles.

Based on 240 similar postings.

Employer

About Circle

Circle is a global financial technology firm and the principal operator of USD Coin (USDC), a leading stablecoin, providing cross-border payments and digital currency infrastructure for businesses. Industry: Financial Technology & Digital Currency

Circle currently has 15 open roles on FindRole.

Listed pay typically runs $195,000–$257,500 across 15 roles with salary data.

Most-posted roles

View all roles at Circle

At a glance

TL;DR · Distinguished Software Engineer

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As a Distinguished Software Engineer at Circle, you will drive the long-term technical direction of core systems and platform architectures designed to scale across multiple products and regulatory environments. You will lead complex, cross-cutting engineering initiatives involving infrastructure, security, and compliance while serving as a trusted technical authority to mentor senior engineers and establish company-wide standards for reliability, performance, and developer experience. Your daily work involves stewarding distributed systems, addressing platform-wide technical debt, and identifying systemic bottlenecks within the ecosystem. You will leverage over 15 years of experience in designing large-scale distributed systems to solve challenges in the programmable blockchain infrastructure and digital asset space. The role focuses on building robust solutions for global money movement and payment applications while ensuring high availability and security in a regulated financial technology environment.

What does a Software Engineer earn in California?

Median $214000 from 775 postings across 63 companies.

See salary data

Skills

Distributed Systems System Design Blockchain Scalability Observability Security Internal Developer Platforms Infrastructure Technical Strategy Architecture Software Engineering

What you'll do

Design and steward core platform architectures to ensure scalability, reliability, and long-term resilience.
Drive the technical strategy and architectural direction for critical distributed systems across the product ecosystem.
Lead cross-functional technical initiatives in partnership with Engineering, Product, Infrastructure, Security, and Compliance teams.
Provide deep technical leadership and mentorship to elevate system design quality and engineering rigor.
Identify and resolve platform-wide technical debt, architectural risks, and systemic bottlenecks.
Influence company-wide best practices regarding observability, reliability, performance, and developer experience.
Serve as a trusted technical advisor for major decisions and long-term platform evolution.

What we're looking for

15+ years of software engineering experience.
Deep expertise in designing and operating large-scale distributed systems.
Proven track record of architecting and scaling platform systems for multiple downstream products and teams.
Ability to set long-term technical direction while making pragmatic, high-impact execution decisions.
Extensive experience operating critical, highly available systems with strong observability, reliability, and performance practices.
Exceptional system design skills to debug and resolve complex issues across architectural boundaries.
Strong cross-functional collaboration skills to influence technical direction beyond immediate teams.
Experience building internal developer platforms or working in regulated, compliance-heavy environments is preferred.

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