Senior Distributed Systems Engineer – Scalable Data Platform & Cloud Infrastructure (Remote – United States)

Why Join arenaflex?

arenaflex is a global leader in digital entertainment, delivering streaming experiences to more than 220 million paid members across 190 countries. With a portfolio that now includes original movies, series, documentaries, and even interactive gaming, arenaflex is constantly redefining how content is created, delivered, and enjoyed. Our mission is to bring joy to the world by harnessing the power of data, and we do it by building the most advanced, reliable, and innovative data infrastructure on the planet. As a remote‑first company, arenaflex values talent wherever it lives, offering you the flexibility to work from any location in the United States while collaborating with world‑class engineers, product managers, and data scientists.

About the Role

We are looking for a seasoned Distributed Systems Engineer to join our Data Platform organization. In this role you will design, implement, and operate large‑scale, low‑latency data services that power the core experiences of arenaflex’s millions of users. You will work on a suite of interconnected platforms—including the Data Access Layer, Data Platform Framework, Data Ingestion & Processing, Large‑Scale Data Store, and Big Data Orchestration—each built to handle petabyte‑scale workloads with sub‑millisecond response times. This is a unique opportunity to influence the architecture of a system that serves billions of requests daily, while also contributing to open‑source projects that shape the broader industry.

Key Responsibilities

• Architect, develop, and maintain highly available, fault‑tolerant distributed services that enable micro‑services to ingest, store, and query massive data streams.
• Collaborate with product owners, TPMs, and cross‑functional engineering teams to translate business requirements into scalable technical solutions.
• Drive the evolution of arenaflex’s data platform by introducing modern patterns such as event‑driven architectures, stream processing, and serverless compute.
• Lead the design and implementation of self‑service tooling that empowers engineers to provision, monitor, and troubleshoot data pipelines without deep platform expertise.
• Contribute to arenaflex OSS initiatives, publishing libraries, frameworks, and best‑practice guides that benefit the open‑source community.
• Mentor junior engineers, conduct code reviews, and champion a culture of continuous improvement, reliability, and performance excellence.
• Participate in on‑call rotations, incident response, and post‑mortem analysis to ensure rapid resolution and long‑term remediation of production issues.
• Stay current with emerging technologies (e.g., Rust, Go, Apache Flink, Kafka, Druid, Trino) and evaluate their fit for arenaflex’s data ecosystem.

Essential Qualifications

• 2+ years of hands‑on experience building large‑scale distributed systems or platforms that serve high‑throughput, low‑latency workloads.
• Proficiency in at least one systems programming language such as Java, Go, or Rust, and a solid understanding of memory management, concurrency, and networking.
• Demonstrated experience designing and operating RESTful or gRPC APIs that expose data services to internal consumers.
• Strong foundation in computer science fundamentals—algorithms, data structures, operating systems, and distributed computing concepts.
• Experience with cloud environments (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and container orchestration platforms like Kubernetes.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical field (or equivalent practical experience).

Preferred Qualifications

• Advanced degree (M.S. or Ph.D.) in a quantitative discipline.
• Hands‑on experience with streaming technologies such as Apache Kafka, Pulsar, or Kinesis.
• Familiarity with big‑data processing frameworks like Apache Flink, Spark, or Beam.
• Knowledge of columnar storage engines (e.g., Druid, ClickHouse, Iceberg) and query engines (Presto/Trino, Apache Hive).
• Contributions to open‑source projects or a public GitHub profile showcasing relevant work.
• Experience building self‑service platforms that enable non‑technical users to launch data pipelines or run ad‑hoc analytics.

Core Skills & Competencies

• Systems Thinking: Ability to see the big picture, understand inter‑service dependencies, and anticipate cascading effects of design decisions.
• Performance Optimization: Expertise in profiling, benchmarking, and tuning services to achieve sub‑millisecond latency at scale.
• Reliability Engineering: Strong grasp of SLOs, SLIs, error budgets, and chaos engineering practices.
• Collaboration: Excellent communication skills for working with product, data science, and operations teams across time zones.
• Problem Solving: Proven track record of diagnosing complex production incidents and delivering robust, long‑term fixes.
• Continuous Learning: Passion for staying ahead of industry trends and sharing knowledge through talks, documentation, and mentorship.

Career Growth & Learning Opportunities

At arenaflex, your career trajectory is limited only by your ambition. As a Distributed Systems Engineer you will have access to:

• Mentorship from senior architects who have built some of the world’s most demanding data platforms.
• Sponsored attendance at industry conferences (e.g., QCon, Strata, KubeCon) and internal tech talks.
• Opportunities to lead cross‑functional initiatives, such as launching new data products or migrating legacy workloads to modern cloud‑native stacks.
• Rotational programs that let you explore adjacent domains like machine learning pipelines, real‑time analytics, or content recommendation systems.
• Clear promotion pathways from Individual Contributor to Staff Engineer, Principal Engineer, and beyond.

Work Environment & Culture at arenaflex

arenaflex embraces a remote‑first culture built on trust, autonomy, and results‑orientation. Our engineers enjoy:

• Flexible work hours that accommodate personal rhythms and time‑zone differences.
• A collaborative Slack community, regular virtual coffee chats, and quarterly in‑person meet‑ups.
• Inclusive hiring practices and employee resource groups that celebrate diversity of thought and background.
• State‑of‑the‑art development environments, including cloud sandboxes, CI/CD pipelines, and automated testing frameworks.
• A focus on work‑life balance, with generous paid time off, parental leave, and wellness stipends.

Compensation, Perks & Benefits

arenaflex offers a competitive total rewards package that includes:

• Base salary commensurate with experience (e.g., $25 per hour for entry‑level, with higher rates for senior talent).
• Annual performance bonuses tied to individual and company outcomes.
• Equity participation through stock options or RSUs, aligning your success with arenaflex’s growth.
• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision coverage for you and your dependents.
• Retirement savings plans with company matching contributions.
• Professional development budget for courses, certifications, and conferences.
• Home office stipend to equip your remote workspace with ergonomic furniture and high‑speed internet.
• Unlimited vacation policy, paid parental leave, and mental‑health resources.

How to Apply

If you are excited about building the next generation of data infrastructure that powers billions of smiles worldwide, we want to hear from you. Submit your resume, a brief cover letter highlighting your most relevant projects, and any public code samples or open‑source contributions you are proud of.

Join arenaflex and help shape the future of entertainment, gaming, and interactive media—one data stream at a time.

Apply Now