Senior Software Engineer, CDN

SpaceX

Confirmed live yesterday High trust

Quick summary

Work type: On-site
Location: Redmond, WAHawthorne, CAPalo Alto, CA
Salary: $165,000–$265,000 / yr
Posted: 62 days ago
Freshness: Confirmed live yesterday
Nearby: 99+ roles within 25 mi

Market check

Salary context

Above market

How this pay compares to similar roles

Similar $170k

This role $215k

$119k most similar roles pay here $281k

This role pays more than 83% of similar roles. Most pay $137,500–$202,500 — the shaded band above. At the midpoint, this role pays about $215k versus about $170k 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 720 open roles on FindRole.

Listed pay typically runs $130,000–$165,000 across 511 roles with salary data.

Most-posted roles

View all roles at SpaceX

At a glance

TL;DR · Senior Software Engineer, CDN

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Sr. 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 creating tools, visibility, and alerting mechanisms to maintain business-critical infrastructure in real-time. The engineer will develop algorithms to optimize hardware utilization and cost efficiency, implement traffic shaping across multiple CDNs, and manage experiments to validate future design concepts. Candidates should possess experience with C, C++, or Rust, along with expertise in distributed systems or CDN architecture. Preferred skills include networking knowledge spanning layers 0-7, DNS, Traffic Management, Caching, Load Balancing, SSL/TLS, and DDoS protection. The role addresses the technical challenge of providing scalable broadband internet via a massive satellite constellation by building the underlying infrastructure to manage global traffic and optimize network performance for millions of users.

What does a Software Engineer earn in Washington?

Median $202800 from 341 postings across 36 companies.

See salary data

Skills

C C++ Rust Distributed Systems CDN Edge Networking DNS Traffic Management Caching Load Balancing SSL/TLS DDoS Protection Network Topology 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.
Create 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 discipline and 5+ years of professional software development experience.
7+ years of software development experience in lieu of a degree.
Software development experience in C, C++, or Rust.
3+ years of professional distributed systems experience or experience designing, building, and scaling a CDN system.
Advanced degree in computer science or engineering (preferred).
3+ years of professional networking experience (preferred).
Experience with complex networking systems, Edge Networking, DNS, Traffic Management, Caching, Load Balancing, SSL/TLS, or DDoS protection (preferred).
Must be a U.S. citizen, national, lawful permanent resident, or eligible for required export control authorizations.