Distinguished Software Engineer

Circle

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Remote

Quick summary

Work type: Remote
Location: San Francisco, CA
Salary: $285,000–$352,500 / yr
Posted: 50 days ago
Freshness: Confirmed live today
Nearby: 99+ roles within 25 mi

Market check

Salary context

Above market

How this pay compares to similar roles

Similar $198k

This role $319k

$117k $378k

below market most similar roles pay here above market

This role pays more than 94% of similar roles. Most pay $142,162–$253,500 — the blue 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 25 open roles on FindRole.

Listed pay typically runs $183,750–$230,833 across 24 roles with salary data.

Most-posted roles

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At a glance

TL;DR · Distinguished Software Engineer

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As a Distinguished Software Engineer at Circle, you will join the engineering team to drive the long-term technical direction of the company's platform and core systems. You will be responsible for shaping architectures that scale across products and regulatory environments, leading complex cross-cutting initiatives, and mentoring senior engineers. Your day-to-day work involves designing and stewarding core platform architectures, identifying platform-wide technical debt, and influencing engineering-wide best practices in observability, reliability, performance, and developer experience. You must possess over 15 years of software engineering experience with deep expertise in large-scale distributed systems. This role solves critical problems within the internet of money, specifically focusing on the reliability and scalability of blockchain-based digital dollar infrastructure and global payment applications.

What does a Software Engineer earn in California?

Median $214500 from 1193 postings across 76 companies.

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Skills

Distributed Systems System Design Blockchain Observability Security Scalability Internal Developer Platforms Infrastructure Technical Strategy Compliance

What you'll do

Design and steward core platform architectures to ensure long-term scalability, reliability, and 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 engineering-wide best practices regarding observability, reliability, performance, and developer experience.
Serve as a trusted technical advisor for major company decisions and long-term platform evolution.

What we're looking for

15+ years of software engineering experience.
Deep expertise 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 services and architectural boundaries.
Strong cross-functional collaboration skills with demonstrated influence on technical direction beyond immediate teams.
Experience building internal developer platforms, working in regulated environments, or shaping engineering-wide practices (preferred).

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