As a Senior Software Engineer at Alluxio, you'll solve complex challenges in distributed data services, focusing on performance optimization and system scalability.
About Alluxio
Alluxio powers the data layer for modern AI and analytics. Proven in production at eight of the top ten internet companies and seven of the ten highest-valued enterprises globally, Alluxio’s data orchestration platform unifies data across storage systems, regions, and clouds providing a high-performance distributed caching layer built for large-scale AI workloads.
Spun out of UC Berkeley’s AMPLab by the creators of Tachyon and backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Hillhouse Capital, and Seven Seas Partners, Alluxio sits at the intersection of data, distributed systems, and AI infrastructure.
Our technology is deployed at scale by organizations such as Meta, Uber, Tencent, TikTok, Alibaba, Expedia, Rakuten, Microsoft, and Walmart, orchestrating data for billions of operations per day. Learn more at alluxio.io or on Wikipedia.
The Role
We’re looking for experienced distributed-systems engineers to join our Core Product team and advance the next generation of Alluxio’s data-orchestration engine - the foundation for AI and analytics at global scale.
As a Senior Software Engineer, you’ll work on high-impact systems problems such as:
1. Optimizing metadata management, caching, and replication across thousands of nodes.
2. Designing concurrent, fault-tolerant services for multi-region and multi-cloud environments.
3. Evolving Alluxio’s storage abstraction and scheduling layer to support large-scale AI/ML data pipelines.
4. Collaborating with internal product teams to push the limits of distributed I/O performance.
This is a hands-on, architecture-plus-implementation role for engineers who love deep systems work and want visible impact in a small, senior, highly technical team.
What You’ll Own
- Cache and metadata enhancements - design and implement improvements to caching policies, eviction logic, and metadata scalability to increase performance and reliability.
- Data path optimization - refine I/O pipelines for S3/GCS/HDFS/Posix to reduce latency and improve throughput using concurrency and scheduling techniques.
- Distributed systems reliability - strengthen consistency, replication, and fault-tolerance mechanisms across large-scale clusters.
- Feature development and integration - collaborate with product and solution-engineering teams to deliver features that support AI and analytics workloads.
- Code quality and peer collaboration - participate in design reviews, provide constructive feedback, and ensure robust testing and observability in production systems.
What You’ll Do
- Design, build, and optimize distributed components within Alluxio’s orchestration layer.
- Investigate performance bottlenecks and propose scalable solutions using profiling, tracing, and benchmarking tools.
- Collaborate cross-functionally with fellow engineers, architects, and the open-source community to drive improvements.
- Contribute to releases and stability efforts, ensuring enterprise-grade reliability across global deployments.
What We’re Looking For
- Strong computer-science fundamentals and a passion for large-scale distributed systems.
- Professional experience developing in Java, C++, or Go.
- Practical knowledge of concurrency, replication, distributed coordination, and performance tuning.
- Experience with distributed storage, caching, or data-access layers (e.g., Spark, Presto, Hadoop, Kubernetes).
- Bachelor’s or advanced degree in Computer Science or related technical field (or equivalent experience).
Why Alluxio?
- Build infrastructure trusted by the world’s largest AI and data-driven companies.
- Join a small, senior engineering team where your designs shape the product’s evolution.
- Work directly with the original creators of open-source Alluxio.
- A culture of empathy, curiosity, and ownership - where engineers collaborate closely to solve hard problems.
Alluxio is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate in employment on the basis of race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy and gender identity), national origin, political affiliation, sexual orientation, marital status, disability, genetic information, age, membership in an employee organization, retaliation, parental status, military service, or other non-merit factors.
The base salary range for this full-time position in the United States is $190,000 - $260,000 depending on experience and level, subject to standard withholding and applicable taxes. All candidates will also receive equity (stock options) and access to a comprehensive benefits package. The base salary range reflects the minimum and maximum target for candidates across all US locations. The specific compensation awarded will be based on factors such as work location, skills, experience, and relevant education or training. Our Recruiting Team or Hiring Manager will provide more details about the specific salary range during the recruitment process.
Top Skills
C/C++
Go
Java
Alluxio San Mateo, California, USA Office
1825 S Grant St, Suite 800, San Mateo, CA, United States, 94402
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