Senior Software Engineer – Network (Cloud Compute)

About the role

DigitalOcean’s Core Compute team builds the reliable, high‑performance virtual machine infrastructure that powers millions of developers. As a Senior Software Engineer – Network you will design and implement high‑throughput backend systems that orchestrate VM placement, manage hypervisor interactions and process real‑time telemetry.

Key responsibilities

• Design and build robust backend services and highly concurrent asynchronous workflows for VM provisioning, placement and lifecycle management, primarily using Python and Go.
• Integrate control planes with hypervisor and host virtualization layers such as KVM and QEMU to safely manage compute resources, block storage, and virtual networking.
• Develop and operate scalable APIs (gRPC, REST) that connect compute orchestration engines, host metadata services and internal platforms.
• Collaborate with cross‑functional teams to ensure host infrastructure supports high‑density hyperthreading, autoscaling policies and SLA guarantees.
• Monitor system performance, investigate control‑plane bottlenecks and drive engineering best practices including code reviews and comprehensive testing.

Required profile

• 5+ years of software engineering experience building highly concurrent, fault‑tolerant distributed systems.
• Deep proficiency in Python and Go (or strong experience in C++/Java with willingness to master Python and Go quickly).
• Hands‑on experience with durable workflow orchestration engines for managing distributed state and long‑running asynchronous tasks.
• Strong knowledge of virtualization, hypervisors and containerization technologies such as KVM, QEMU, libvirt, Docker or microVMs.

Required skills

• Python
• Go
• gRPC
• REST APIs
• KVM
• QEMU
• libvirt
• Docker
• MicroVMs
• Workflow orchestration engines
• Distributed systems design

What we offer

• Competitive salary with performance‑based bonus and equity grants.
• Reimbursement for relevant conferences, training and education.
• Access to LinkedIn Learning’s 10,000+ courses.
• Employee Assistance Program, local meetups and flexible time‑off policy.