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# Staff Software Engineer - Site Defense

- **Company:** reddit Inc.
- **Location:** New York, NY, United States (Remote available)
- **Experience:** Expert
- **Salary:** $217,000.0 - $303,900.0
- **Contract:** Permanent contract
- **Skills:** Java (Programming Language), C++ (Programming Language), Content Delivery Networks, Cloud Computing, DDoS Mitigation, Distributed Systems, DOS (Disk Operating System), Python (Programming Language), Network Security, Machine Learning, Networking Basics, Software Engineering, TCP/IP, Rust (Programming Language), Load Balancing, Real-time Inference, Low Latency, Bots, Build Tools, Machine Learning Operations, Ddos, Programming Languages
- **Published:** November 8, 2026
- **Apply:** https://www.careerbuilder.com/job-details/staff-software-engineer-site-defense-new-york-ny--5bcd7386-859a-4920-80fb-ca0cf93a4134

## About the Role

Software Engineering, Website Conversion, Cloud Computing, Denial of Service (DoS), Distributed Computing, Software Engineering, Machine Learning, Network Security, Analysis Skills, Content Delivery Network (CDN), * 7+ years of experience building and operating high throughput and low latency production distributed systems.

 * Software development experience in one or more general purpose programming languages; Python, Go, Rust, Java, C++.
 * Excellent communication skills to collaborate with a service-oriented team and company.
 * Experience with DDoS mitigation, WAFs, bot management, or abuse prevention systems.
 * Experience with networking fundamentals (HTTP, TLS, TCP/IP, proxies, CDNs, load balancing).

Nice to have:

 * Experience with anti-abuse frameworks and bot scores (ReCaptcha, Datadome, Turnstile)
 * Experience with browser fingerprinting frameworks (fingerprintJS, ThumbmarkJS)
 * Familiarity with ML systems in production, especially real-time inference or feature pipelines.

## Description

We are looking for a Staff Software Engineer to join the Site Defense team within Reddit's Infrastructure organization. Site Defense is responsible for protecting Reddit at internet scale-serving as the first line of defense against DDoS attacks, automated abuse, large-scale scraping, and other network-level threats. This is a high impact role that sits at the intersection of distributed systems, networking, security, and applied machine learning. You will design and own the critical infrastructure that safeguards Reddit's data from large scale attacks.

You will:

 * Design, build, and operate high-scale, low-latency systems that protect Reddit from DDoS attacks, bots, and automated abuse.
 * Analyze, develop and evolve ingress-level defenses across CDN, edge, and internal infrastructure layers.
 * Build systems to detect, score, and mitigate malicious traffic in real time at per-request and per-user granularity
 * Partner closely within Infrastructure and with Security, and internal Safety teams to balance security, performance, and user experience
 * Mentor junior engineers in their professional growth.
 * Contribute to the team's ML-at-Ingress initiatives, including experimenting with models for traffic classification, bot detection, and anomaly detection
 * Own services end-to-end, including design, implementation, on-call, and operational excellence
 * Participate in incident response and post-incident analysis for large-scale network or abuse events