Software Engineer - Distributed Systems

Software Engineer - Distributed Systems

San Francisco, CA • New York, NY • United States

Figma is growing our team of passionate creatives and builders on a mission to make design accessible to all. Figma's platform helps teams bring ideas to life—whether you're brainstorming, creating a prototype, translating designs into code, or iterating with AI. From idea to product, Figma empowers teams to streamline workflows, move faster, and work together in real time from anywhere in the world. If you're excited to shape the future of design and collaboration, join us!

At Figma, infrastructure is at the heart of everything we build. As a Software Engineer on our Infrastructure team, you'll help design, build, and operate the systems that power our real-time collaborative design tools used by millions of people worldwide. We're scaling fast, and we're looking for experienced distributed systems engineers across a variety of teams. Whether you're passionate about storage, compute orchestration, developer tooling, networking, or real-time data systems, this role offers an opportunity to shape the technical foundation of one of the most beloved design platforms in the world.

This is a full time role that can be held from one of our US hubs or remotely in the United States.

What You'll Do At Figma:

• Design, build, and maintain scalable and reliable infrastructure systems that support product innovation and user collaboration at scale.
• Architect and evolve distributed systems including storage platforms, streaming infrastructure, and compute orchestration.
• Improve developer experience by building internal platforms, CI/CD systems, build tools, and APIs.
• Collaborate across product and infrastructure teams to design secure, maintainable, and performant systems.
• Participate in shaping platform strategy, roadmaps, and engineering best practices across the organization.
• Debug and resolve complex production issues that span services and layers of the stack.
• Mentor engineers and foster a culture of collaboration, inclusivity, and technical excellence.

We'd Love To Hear From You If You Have:

• 5+ years of software engineering experience, specifically in backend or infrastructure engineering.
• Deep understanding of distributed systems concepts such as sharding, replication, consistency, and eventual convergence.
• Experience with cloud-native environments (AWS, GCP, or Azure), infrastructure-as-code, and container orchestration.
• Proficiency in languages such as Go, TypeScript, Python, Rust, or Ruby.
• Strong system design skills and a track record of architecting resilient production systems.
• Excellent communication skills, with experience collaborating across teams and mentoring others.

While It's Not Required, It's An Added Plus If You Also Have:

• Experience scaling storage platforms (e.g., Postgres, Redis, S3, DynamoDB) or operating streaming systems like Kafka.
• Background in traffic management, DDoS mitigation, or service mesh technologies (e.g., Envoy, Istio).
• A history of developing complex, realtime distributed systems at scale.
• A passion for building developer productivity tools, including development environments, CI/CD pipelines, and build systems.
• Experience with evolving large-scale, shared developer platforms to improve reliability and developer velocity.
• Strong problem-solving skills and a bias for action—especially when tackling high-impact, gritty challenges.

At Figma, one of our values is Grow as you go. We believe in hiring smart, curious people who are excited to learn and develop their skills. If you're excited about this role but your past experience doesn't align perfectly with the points outlined in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyways. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.

Pay Transparency Disclosure Job level and actual compensation will be decided based on factors including, but not limited to, individual qualifications objectively assessed during the interview process (including skills and prior relevant experience, potential impact, and scope of role), market demands, and specific work location. Figma offers equity to employees, as well as a competitive package of additional benefits, including health, dental, and vision coverage; retirement benefits with company contributions; parental leave and reproductive or family planning support; mental health and wellness benefits; and paid time off. Figma provides paid sick leave, holidays, and other leave benefits in compliance with applicable federal, state, and local laws, including the requirements of the Washington Minimum Wage Act and related regulations. Exempt employees are eligible for employer‑provided paid flexible PTO in addition to flexible paid sick leave. PTO is subject to manager approval. Additional benefits may include company recharge days, cell phone and home internet reimbursements, and a number of lifestyle spending accounts. Figma also offers sales incentive compensation for most sales roles and an annual bonus plan for eligible non-sales roles. All compensation and benefits are subject to applicable plan terms and may be modified by Figma at any time, consistent with applicable law.

Annual Base Salary Range:

$153,000 - $376,000 USD

At Figma we celebrate and support our differences. We know employing a team rich in diverse thoughts, experiences, and opinions allows our employees, our product and our community to flourish. Figma is an equal opportunity workplace - we are dedicated to equal employment opportunities regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity/expression, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements.

We will work to ensure individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to apply for a role, participate in the interview process, perform essential job functions, and receive other benefits and privileges of employment. If you require accommodation, please reach out to View email address on click.appcast.io. These modifications enable an individual with a disability to have an equal opportunity not only to get a job, but successfully perform their job tasks to the same extent as people without disabilities.

Examples of accommodations include but are not limited to:

• Holding interviews in an accessible location
• Enabling closed captioning on video conferencing
• Ensuring all written communication be compatible with screen readers
• Changing the mode or format of interviews

To ensure the integrity of our hiring process and facilitate a more personal connection, we require all candidates keep their cameras on during video interviews. Additionally, if hired you will be required to attend in person onboarding.

By applying for this job, the candidate acknowledges and agrees that any personal data contained in their application or supporting materials will be processed in accordance with Figma's Candidate Privacy Notice.