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# Staff Software Engineer

- **Company:** Zoox
- **Location:** Seattle, WA, United States
- **Experience:** Expert
- **Salary:** $255,000 - $320,000
- **Contract:** Permanent contract
- **Skills:** Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), C++ (Programming Language), Encodings, Computer Networks, Computer Engineering, Serialization, Data Structures, Linux, Distributed Systems, Memory Management, Middleware, Protocol Buffers, Enterprise Messaging Systems, Network Protocols, Software Engineering, Concurrency, Build Management, Information Technology, Low Latency, C++14
- **Published:** November 10, 2026
- **Apply:** https://jobs.lever.co/zoox/beeb6f55-0d41-4481-a5d8-18b1f9b6657b/apply

## About the Role

* Bachelor's or Master's degree in computer science, electrical / computer engineering, or equivalent experience, and 7+ years of experience in software development.
 * Strong modern C++ on Linux, in large codebases with performance-critical paths.
 * A background in transport or networking software, such as messaging systems, network protocols, or communication between distributed systems.
 * Experience building low-latency systems, and a track record of measuring and reducing tail latency, using techniques such as zero-copy, shared memory, lock-free data structures, and cache-aware data layout.
 * Solid systems fundamentals: concurrency, memory management, process lifecycle, sockets and the Linux networking stack.
*, * Hands-on experience with shared-memory IPC, pub/sub or RPC middleware such as DDS, ROS 2, or iceoryx, or serialization frameworks such as Protocol Buffers, nanopb, or FlatBuffers.

 * Experience with PTP (IEEE 1588) or other time synchronization across machines, or with UDP multicast, MTU and fragmentation behavior, or time-sensitive networking.
 * Robotics, automotive, aerospace, or another real-time or safety-relevant domain.

## Description

* Design and build low-latency inter-process and inter-host transport in C++: zero-copy data paths, shared-memory buffers, and lock-free queues. Measure and drive down end-to-end latency and jitter as message volume grows.
 * Make the transport hold up when processes crash or restart, hosts start out of order, and networks drop or delay packets. Chase fleet and simulation issues to root cause and fix them in the design.
 * Build the pub/sub and RPC messaging APIs application teams build on, so they get the delivery, ordering, and latency guarantees they need without having to understand the transport underneath.
 * Evolve message schemas and the Protocol Buffers based serialization layer: schema evolution, compact encodings, and moving existing users onto new formats without breaking anyone.
 * Set technical direction for a part of the stack and lead designs that span several teams.