Software Engineer, Systems

Meta

• $135K — $160K *
Information Technology
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or relevant field (or in progress)
  • 2+ years of experience in systems-level software development using C, C++, Rust, or similar languages
  • Knowledge of operating systems internals (process management, memory management, file systems, networking) in Linux or UNIX-based environments
  • Experience with distributed systems design, focusing on fault tolerance, consistency, and scalability
  • Proficient in writing automated tests and debugging production issues with profiling and tracing tools

Responsibilities

  • Design and implement systems-level software components for large-scale operations
  • Optimize performance-critical code paths and resolve bottlenecks across various layers
  • Write automated tests to ensure reliability of systems software
  • Instrument systems for observability and rapid diagnosis of production issues
  • Participate in on-call rotations and contribute to incident investigations and retrospectives
  • Collaborate with cross-functional teams to define requirements and deliver end-to-end systems solutions
  • Conduct code reviews to maintain quality and identify performance issues

Benefits

  • Opportunity to work on infrastructure that supports billions of users
  • Collaborative environment with cross-functional engineering teams
  • Exposure to cutting-edge technologies and practices in systems engineering
  • Participation in open-source projects and ethical AI practices
  • Professional development opportunities in AI and systems optimization
Full Job Description
Meta is looking for a Software Engineer with a systems specialization to help build and scale the foundational infrastructure that powers Meta's family of products and services. In this role, you will design, develop, and maintain systems-level software that operates at massive scale, ensuring reliability, performance, and efficiency across critical infrastructure. You will work closely with cross-functional engineering teams to solve complex systems challenges, from low-level kernel and runtime optimization to distributed systems design, contributing directly to the infrastructure that billions of people depend on every day.

Responsibilities

Design and implement systems-level software components, including low-level libraries, runtime environments, and infrastructure services that operate at large scale
• Develop and optimize performance-critical code paths, identifying and resolving bottlenecks across compute, memory, storage, and network layers
• Write automated tests covering expected behaviors, failure modes, and error paths to ensure reliability of systems software
• Instrument systems with metrics, logging, and alerting to enable observability and rapid diagnosis of production issues
• Participate in on-call rotations, investigate production incidents, and contribute detailed retrospectives to prevent recurrence
• Collaborate with cross-functional partners in product engineering, infrastructure, and data science to define requirements and deliver systems solutions end-to-end
• Conduct and participate in code reviews to maintain code quality, share knowledge, and identify subtle correctness and performance issues including those introduced by AI-assisted development
• Manage staged rollouts of systems changes using feature flagging and incremental deployment strategies, monitoring key reliability metrics throughout
• Contribute to technical documentation for new systems components and updates to existing infrastructure, ensuring clarity for current and future owners
• Identify and eliminate technical debt by consolidating duplicative implementations, deprecating obsolete code, and modernizing legacy systems components

Minimum Qualifications
• Currently has, or is in the process of obtaining a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, relevant technical field, or equivalent practical experience. Degree must be completed prior to joining Meta
• 2+ years of experience developing systems-level software in C, C++, Rust, or a comparable low-level language
• Experience with operating systems internals, including process management, memory management, file systems, or networking subsystems in Linux or a comparable UNIX-based environment
• Experience designing and implementing components within distributed systems, including considerations for fault tolerance, consistency, and scalability
• Experience writing automated tests, debugging production issues using profiling and tracing tools, and building observability instrumentation for systems software
• Experience collaborating with cross-functional engineering teams to deliver medium to large software features independently from design through production

Preferred Qualifications
• Experience contributing to or maintaining open-source systems software projects
• Experience adhering to and implementing responsible, ethical AI practices (e.g., risk assessment, bias mitigation, quality and accuracy reviews)
• Demonstrated ongoing AI skill development (e.g., prompt/context engineering, agent orchestration) and staying current with emerging AI technologies
• Demonstrated ability to integrate AI tools to optimize/redesign workflows and drive measurable impact (e.g., efficiency gains, quality improvements)
• Exposure to applying AI-assisted development tools to accelerate systems engineering work, including reviewing and validating generated code for correctness and safety
• Familiarity with container orchestration platforms, cluster management systems, or large-scale compute infrastructure
• Experience with performance profiling and optimization at the systems level, including CPU, memory, I/O, and network analysis

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