Principal Software Engineer, CDN

SpaceX

Confirmed live 2 days ago Trusted

Quick summary

Work type: On-site
Location: Hawthorne, CA
Salary: $255,000–$340,000 / yr
Posted: 15 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 $181k

This role $298k

$113k most similar roles pay here $364k

This role pays more than 92% of similar roles. Most pay $145,000–$216,300 — the shaded band above. At the midpoint, this role pays about $298k versus about $181k for comparable roles.

Based on 240 similar postings.

Employer

About SpaceX

SpaceX designs, manufactures, and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft with the mission of enabling humans to become a multi-planetary species. It operates the Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, and Starship launch vehicles, as well as the Starlink satellite internet constellation.

SpaceX currently has 680 open roles on FindRole.

Listed pay typically runs $130,000–$165,000 across 442 roles with salary data.

Most-posted roles

View all roles at SpaceX

At a glance

TL;DR · Principal Software Engineer, CDN

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Principal Software Engineer, CDN (Starlink) joins the CDN team to design, build, and scale a new Content Delivery Network for Starlink. This role involves developing robust, responsive distributed systems while building tools, visibility, and alerting mechanisms to maintain business-critical infrastructure in real-time. The engineer will design algorithms to optimize hardware utilization and cost efficiency, implement traffic shaping across multiple CDNs, lead architecture reviews, and develop prototypes to validate future use cases. Candidates must possess experience in C, C++, or Rust, along with expertise in distributed systems and networking. Preferred skills include knowledge of Edge Networking, DNS, Traffic Management, Caching, Load Balancing, SSL/TLS, and DDoS protection. The role addresses the technical challenge of scaling a global satellite broadband system by building scalable infrastructure to support growing user numbers and complex network topologies.

What does a Software Engineer earn in California?

Median $214000 from 775 postings across 63 companies.

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Skills

CDN Distributed Systems C C++ Rust Networking Edge Networking DNS Traffic Management Caching Load Balancing SSL/TLS DDoS Protection Monitoring Graph Theory Convex Optimization Numerical Optimization

What you'll do

Design, build, and scale a new Content Delivery Network (CDN) for Starlink.
Build robust, responsive, and scalable distributed systems.
Develop tools, visibility, and alerting mechanisms to diagnose and maintain business-critical systems in real-time.
Design algorithms to optimize hardware utilization and cost efficiency against performance metrics.
Implement systems that manage and shape traffic across multiple CDNs.
Lead architecture, design, and code reviews for the engineering team.
Develop prototypes and manage experiments to validate future design concepts and use cases.

What we're looking for

Bachelor's degree in computer science, engineering, or another STEM field and 10+ years of professional software development experience.
12+ years of software development experience is acceptable in lieu of a degree.
Experience with software development in C, C++, or Rust.
5+ years of professional distributed systems experience or experience designing, building, and scaling a CDN system.
7+ years of professional networking experience.
Advanced degree in computer science or engineering (preferred).
Experience with complex networking systems, Edge Networking, DNS, Traffic Management, Caching, Load Balancing, SSL/TLS, or DDoS protection (preferred).
Knowledge of network topology, numerical optimization, graph theory, or convex optimization (preferred).
Must be a U.S. citizen, national, lawful permanent resident, refugee, or asylee to meet ITAR requirements.

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