<div class="content-intro"><p>Dive in and do the best work of your career at DigitalOcean. Journey alongside a strong community of top talent who are relentless in their drive to build the simplest scalable cloud. If you have a growth mindset, naturally like to think big and bold, and are energized by the fast-paced environment of a true industry disruptor, you’ll find your place here. We value winning together—while learning, having fun, and making a profound difference for the dreamers and builders in the world. </p></div><h2><strong>About the Role</strong></h2> <p>DigitalOcean is looking for a Staff Software Engineer to help design and build the next generation of software powering our global network infrastructure.</p> <p>This role sits at the intersection of software engineering, networking, distributed systems, and hardware acceleration. You will build the automation, orchestration, and infrastructure software that enables DigitalOcean to scale its network reliably while exploring new architectures using Data Processing Units (DPUs), SmartNICs, and programmable network infrastructure.</p> <p>You will work closely with network, infrastructure, and hardware engineering teams to turn complex networking and infrastructure requirements into scalable software. This includes everything from network provisioning and device lifecycle management to telemetry, automated remediation, and software-driven network and DPU orchestration.</p> <p>As a Staff Engineer, you will have impact beyond your own code. You will establish technical direction, drive architectural decisions, identify opportunities to move functionality into software and hardware accelerators, and help define how DigitalOcean's infrastructure evolves over the coming years.</p> <p>A key part of the role is the ability to turn ambiguous technical problems into clear proposals and executable plans. You will be expected to author RFCs, architecture and design documents, technical proposals, and other project documentation needed to establish alignment and drive complex initiatives from concept through implementation.</p> <h2><strong>What You'll Be Doing</strong></h2> <ul> <li>Design and build network automation and orchestration systems that enable reliable deployment and operation of DigitalOcean's global network infrastructure.</li> <li>Develop software for network provisioning, configuration management, device lifecycle management, validation, monitoring, and automated remediation.</li> <li>Design and build software systems that integrate with DPUs, SmartNICs, and programmable network infrastructure.</li> <li>Develop automation supporting large-scale datacenter and Point of Presence deployments, including new hardware, network fabrics, routing infrastructure, and vendor integrations.</li> <li>Build systems that abstract differences across network vendors, and hardware implementations while maintaining strong operational safety and reliability.</li> <li>Build tools that help engineers diagnose network and infrastructure issues and automate common operational workflows.</li> <li>Identify manual, repetitive, or error-prone infrastructure operations and turn them into scalable software solutions.</li> <li>Partner closely with network engineers and infrastructure architects to translate complex networking and hardware requirements into maintainable software architectures.</li> <li>Establish engineering standards and best practices for infrastructure software development, testing, observability, and operational readiness.</li> <li>Lead projects from early technical design through implementation, deployment, and long-term operation.</li> <li>Mentor engineers and provide technical leadership across the broader engineering organization.</li> </ul> <h2><strong>What We're Looking For</strong></h2> <ul> <li>Significant experience designing and building production software systems at scale.</li> <li>Strong software engineering fundamentals, including distributed systems, API design, concurrency, testing, observability, and system reliability.</li> <li>Strong programming experience in one or more languages such as Go, Python, or C++</li> <li>Experience building automation, orchestration, or infrastructure platforms.</li> <li>Strong understanding of networking, including TCP/IP, BGP, EVPN/VXLAN, VLANs, routing, switching, and network telemetry.</li> <li>Experience working with network devices, network automation frameworks, APIs, or vendor SDKs.</li> <li>Experience designing systems that operate safely in highly available, production environments.</li> <li>Ability to understand complex infrastructure problems and simplify them into scalable software architectures.</li> <li>Strong technical writing skills, with demonstrated ability to produce RFCs, architecture/design documents, technical proposals, project plans, and other documentation required to drive complex engineering projects.</li> <li>Ability to take ambiguous problems and turn them into clear technical proposals, documented requirements, architectural decisions, and actionable implementation plans.</li> <li>Strong communication skills and the ability to influence technical decisions across engineering teams.</li> <li>Demonstrated ability to operate as a technical leader without relying on organizational authority.</li> </ul> <p>Experience in one or more of the following is particularly valuable:</p> <ul> <li>Building software that uses DPUs for networking, security, storage, virtualization, or infrastruct