10+ years of experience in building distributed and scalable backend systems.
3+ years of experience leading software engineering teams.
Proficiency in Java, Go, Python, or similar backend technologies.
Expertise in microservices, APIs, and cloud-native architectures.
Experience with event-driven architectures and technologies like Kafka.
Understanding of modern AI systems, including LLMs and agent orchestration frameworks.
Strong communication skills with the ability to influence technical direction.
Responsibilities
Lead and grow a team of backend engineers focused on scalable cloud services.
Drive technical strategy for distributed systems and AI-enabled services.
Collaborate with Product, Security, Infrastructure, and Data Science teams.
Define architecture for microservices and cloud-native applications.
Shape the AI roadmap, including workflows and infrastructure.
Establish engineering best practices for reliability and operational excellence.
Mentor engineering managers and senior engineers, fostering innovation.
Drive quarterly planning and architectural reviews.
Benefits
Access to cutting-edge technology and tools.
Opportunity to work in a collaborative and innovative environment.
Mentorship and professional development opportunities.
Engagement with cross-functional teams to enhance product offerings.
Involvement in shaping the future of AI and cloud services.
Full Job Description
Location: 5 on-site days a week in Sunnyvale, CA Headquarters.
Your Impact
Lead and grow a team of backend engineers building highly scalable cloud services and AI-powered platform capabilities.
Drive technical strategy and execution for distributed systems, platform APIs, and AI-enabled services.
Partner closely with Product, Security, Infrastructure, and Data Science teams to deliver intelligent platform experiences.
Define architecture for large-scale microservices, event-driven systems, and cloud-native applications.
Help shape Illumio's AI roadmap, including agentic workflows, LLM integrations, RAG architectures, and AI infrastructure.
Establish engineering best practices around reliability, observability, scalability, security, and operational excellence.
Mentor engineering managers and senior engineers while fostering a culture of ownership and innovation.
Drive quarterly planning, staffing strategy, technical roadmaps, and architectural reviews.
Ensure successful delivery of highly available services running across AWS, Azure, and GCP environments.
Your Toolkit
10+ years building distributed and scalable backend systems.
3+ years leading software engineering teams and engineering leads/managers.
Strong experience in Java, Go, Python, or equivalent backend technologies.
Deep expertise with microservices, APIs, cloud-native architectures, Kubernetes, and containerized workloads.
Experience building high-scale distributed systems and event-driven architectures leveraging technologies such as Kafka.
Practical understanding of modern AI systems, including LLMs, AI agents, RAG architectures, model serving, prompt engineering, and agent orchestration frameworks.
Experience partnering with Product Management to define strategy and deliver customer-facing capabilities.
Strong communication skills and the ability to influence technical direction across organizations.
Experience operating services in production with a focus on telemetry, monitoring, and reliability.
Bonus Points
Experience leading AI Platform, ML Infrastructure, or Agentic Systems teams.
Hands-on knowledge of vector databases, inference optimization, model evaluation frameworks, and AI observability platforms such as Langfuse.
Security or cybersecurity domain experience.
Experience building enterprise SaaS platforms at scale.
Familiarity with Terraform, cloud automation, and Infrastructure-as-Code.
#LI-TD1 #LI-ONSITE
This position involves access to software/technology that is subject to U.S. export controls. Any job offer made will be contingent upon the applicant's capacity to serve in compliance with U.S. export controls.
About Illumio
Illumio is a cybersecurity company that provides software for securing enterprise computing environments. The company was founded in 2013 by Andrew Rubin and PJ Kirner and is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. Illumio's software uses micro-segmentation to protect against cyber threats by creating security policies that restrict access to sensitive data and applications. The company's software is used by a wide range of clients, including financial institutions, healthcare providers, and government agencies. Illumio has received numerous awards for its innovative approach to cybersecurity, including being named a Gartner Cool Vendor in 2016.
