Captions is looking for a Principal Engineer to architect and drive platform-wide initiatives that push the boundaries of distributed systems and solve complex technical challenges at massive scale, ensuring the software engineering organization can innovate quickly and reliably to help creators tell their stories through video.
Requirements
- 10+ years of industry experience designing, building, and operating highly scalable distributed systems.
- Deep understanding of computer science fundamentals (data structures, algorithms, concurrency) and strong proficiency in at least one modern programming language (Python, C++, Java, Rust, etc.).
- Hands-on experience with cloud infrastructures (GCP, AWS, Azure, or similar) and container orchestration (e.g., Kubernetes).
- Proven track record of delivering high-quality, scalable solutions to production, with an emphasis on performance and fault tolerance.
- Excellent problem-solving and communication skills, with the ability to mentor others, navigate ambiguity, and tackle open-ended technical challenges.
Responsibilities
- Design, implement, and optimize large-scale distributed systems capable of handling massive throughput and concurrency.
- Own critical backend services end-to-end, ensuring they meet high standards of performance, reliability, and cost-efficiency.
- Collaborate with product teams to build systems and services that are operationally sound while also enabling rapid feature development and deployment across iOS, Android, and Web platforms.
- Continuously refine our existing systems, and identify new technologies or methodologies that can enhance our infrastructure,
- You’ll bring fresh ideas to the table, mentor other engineers, and balance short-term needs with longer-term architectural vision—ensuring we can scale effectively as our user base grows.
Other
- all of our roles will require you to be in-person at our NYC HQ (located in Union Square)
- highly experienced engineer who can solve some of our hardest technical challenges, shape architectural direction, and provide technical leadership.
- mentor other engineers
- Excellent problem-solving and communication skills
- navigate ambiguity, and tackle open-ended technical challenges.
