Senior Software Engineer, Replication Foundations
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Temporal
US
Summary
The Staff Software Engineer will lead the design and implementation of core components of Temporal’s open-source replication stack, focusing on evolving protocols for High Availability, cross-cluster replication, and migration capabilities. Key outcomes include evolving replication protocols to make failures non-events and delivering scalability primitives like multi-cell namespaces to support growth.
Job Description
About Us
Temporal is an open source programming model that can simplify code, make applications more reliable, and help developers focus on the important things like delivering features faster. We are on a mission to be the reliable foundation of every developer’s toolbox, and are building the team that will make that happen.
Our values guide us —they are present in how we show up, make decisions, and work together to make an impact. We’re curious, driven, collaborative, genuine and humble.
Temporal is growing and we are looking for those who share our values, challenge 'standard' thinking, and want to influence our future. If you have a passion for improving the developer experience, building world-class open-source software and communities, and want to be a part of our amazing team, we'd love to hear from you!
Summary
We’re hiring a Senior Software Engineer (or Staff level) to join the Replication Foundations team, part of Temporal’s Cloud Global Services (CGS) organization.
Replication Foundations owns and evolves Temporal’s core replication stack in Temporal OSS—the distributed systems backbone behind key Temporal Cloud capabilities like High Availability namespaces, cross-cluster and cross-region failover, and migration products that enable customers to move workloads between self-hosted Temporal and Temporal Cloud. The team also builds foundational scalability and reliability mechanisms that support Temporal at scale.
As a Senior Engineer, you’ll contribute to the design, implementation, and evolution of Temporal’s distributed replication systems. You’ll work on correctness-critical infrastructure, collaborating with teammates to build reliable, scalable systems and improve the robustness of Temporal’s core platform.
What You'll Do
- Design and implement components of Temporal’s OSS replication stack, contributing from design through rollout and operational support.
- Help build and improve replication protocols that power:
- High Availability namespaces
- Cross-cluster and cross-region replication
- Migration between Temporal clusters (cloud ↔ self-hosted, cloud ↔ cloud)
- Contribute to scalability and reliability initiatives such as:
- Multi-cell namespaces
- Enabling a namespace to span multiple clusters
- Improving load distribution and handling hot spots
- Work with teammates to reason about correctness concerns, including consistency models, ordering guarantees, idempotency, and failure recovery.
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams to ensure OSS replication capabilities support cloud product needs.
- Write clear design documents outlining approach, trade-offs, and system behavior.
- Participate in code reviews and contribute to improving code quality, testing, and reliability practices.
- Support on-call rotations and contribute to debugging and resolving production issues related to replication and core system behavior.
What You'll Bring
- 5 or more years of deep experience building production systems, with exposure to distributed systems.
- Experience working on systems involving concurrency, reliability, or data consistency.
- Ability to design and implement components of distributed systems with attention to correctness and performance.
- Experience debugging production issues, including concurrency bugs, failures, or performance bottlenecks.
- Proficiency in writing production-quality code (Go preferred; experience in Java, C++, or similar languages is also welcome).
- Solid understanding of distributed systems fundamentals such as replication, partitioning, fault tolerance, and durability.
- Ability to collaborate effectively with teammates and incorporate feedback.
- A thoughtful and curious approach to understanding how systems behave under load and failure conditions.
Nice to Have
- Experience designing or maintaining replication protocols or data-plane infrastructure.
- Experience with multi-cluster or multi-region architectures (active-active / active-passive).
- Familiarity with database internals, log-based replication, or event-sourced systems.
- Prior contributions to large OSS projects or distributed systems infrastructure.
Compensation
- The estimated pay range for this role is $176,000 - $237,600.
- Additionally, this role is eligible to participate in Temporal's equity plan.
Compensation ranges reflect salary and commission compensation (when applicable) across several geographic markets. Employment offers carefully consider multiple factors, including prior experience, knowledge, expertise, skillset, market location, and job level assessed during the interview process.
Employee benefits and perks below are for full-time employees, part-time or temporary positions are excluded.
U.S. Benefits
- Unlimited PTO, 12 Holidays + 2 Floating Holidays
- 100% Premiums Coverage for Medical, Dental, and Vision
- AD&D, LT & ST Disability, and Life Insurance (Standard & Supplemental Available)
- Empower 401K Plan
- Additional Perks for Learning & Development, Lifestyle Spending, In-Home Office Setup, Professional Memberships, WFH Meals, Internet Stipend and more!
International Benefits
Paid Time Off (PTO) and Benefits outside the United States vary by country, and are issued in partnership with Remote.com. Additionally, Temporal offers perks to all international employees for learning & career development, a lifestyle spending account, in-home office setup (in addition to company-issued hardware), professional memberships, work-from-home meals, and access to the Calm app for mental wellness.
Travel
Temporal is a globally distributed, collaborative team that values opportunities for in-person connection. Occasional travel may be required for company events, team offsites, and other meaningful moments that bring us together.
Additional Perks
- $3,600 / Year Work from Home Meals
- $1,800 / Year Professional Enrichment (Career Development & Professional Memberships)
- $1,200 / Year Lifestyle Spending Account
- $1,000 / Year In-Home Office Setup (In addition to Temporal issued equipment - laptop, monitor, keyboard, mouse, trackpad, and extension power cable at no cost to you)
- $74 / Month Reimbursement for Internet
- Calm App Subscription for Mental Health & Wellness
Temporal Technologies is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Temporal Technologies does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, non-disqualifying physical or mental disability, national origin, veteran status, or any other basis covered by appropriate law. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, merit, and business need. We embrace and celebrate differences and diversity.
Temporal is committed to providing access, equal opportunity, and reasonable accommodation for individuals with disabilities in employment, its services, programs, and activities. If you need to request a reasonable accommodation, please let your Recruiter know so we can assist.
We are not working with external recruitment agencies, thanks.