Software Engineer - Datapath

Alkira's Data Path team owns the lowest layer of the product: the code that forwards customer traffic at line rate, the encryption that protects it, and the address translation and tunneling that connect customer networks across clouds. At its center is a stateful engine that tracks every connection and applies routing, translation, and policy as packets pass through. This role begins on the layer that programs the fastpath: the Go agents, Python tooling, and Ansible automation that configure the datapath, push state onto it, and report what it is doing. It progresses into the C fastpath itself, and into ownership of datapath features. On-call is a required part of this role. Engineers join the datapath rotation once ramped, with coverage shared across the US and India.

Responsibilities

Build and extend the Go agents that program the datapath, pushing configuration onto the fastpath and reconciling running state against intended state; Build the Python tooling and CLI used to drive, inspect, and debug the datapath; Write the Ansible automation that stands up and configures the networking stack on nodes; Develop the exporters and observability that report fastpath behavior: counters, flow state, and packet-level signals; Write tests and reproduction cases for datapath behavior; Measure and tune datapath performance: packet rates, latency, and where cycles are spent; Debug production datapath issues with the team and participate in the on-call rotation; Use AI tools such as Claude Code for tooling, test generation, and code navigation

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related technical field; 1-4 years of experience developing software for networking, distributed systems, operating systems, or cloud infrastructure; Fundamentals in operating systems (processes, threads, memory, scheduling, system call behavior); Computer architecture (caches, memory hierarchy, cost of a cache miss); Computer networks (TCP/IP, packet header structure, packet forwarding, routing, and translation); Algorithms and data structures (hashing, tries, time and space costs); Debugging (isolating faults in unfamiliar systems and driving them to root cause); Linux (shell, processes, logs, standard networking tools)

Nice to have

C; Go and Python; Ansible or configuration automation generally; Distributed systems