Senior Software Engineer, Substrate

About the Role

Substrate is the team responsible for Palantir’s core production infrastructure — hundreds of Kubernetes clusters — from on-prem to the major cloud hyperscalers, whether they are internet-connected or air-gapped, small hardware footprint or large. As a Senior Software Engineer on Substrate, you will design and build Palantir’s managed Kubernetes product offerings across all these environments.

You and your team will be responsible for bootstrapping and operating the entire fleet of K8s clusters with zero manual steps by building industry-leading tooling and contributing to core CNCF components. You will ensure scale, stability, and security across various compliance regimes and hosting infrastructure types.

Core Responsibilities

• Deliver a container runtime to challenging new environment types, including new clouds, on-premise, and edge devices.
• Build automation and establish standards for operating K8s securely at scale with zero manual operational overhead.
• Drive innovation through adoption of novel K8s features and CNCF tools, making upstream contributions as needed.
• Design the next generation of Palantir’s infrastructure through a deep understanding of internal systems and CNCF standards.

Qualifications

Requirements

• 4+ years of professional software development experience on core infrastructure with an emphasis on operational excellence.
• 2+ years of experience contributing to the system design or architecture (architecture, design patterns, reliability, and scaling) of new and existing systems.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent practical experience.

What We Value

• Systems programming experience with strong proficiency in Go, C/C++, or equivalent.
• Working knowledge or hands-on experience with infrastructure automation tools such as Terraform, Ansible, Puppet, or K8s operators, and competent coding in Go, Java, or equivalent for scripting and automation.
• Deep familiarity with hardware and OS configurations, diagnostic tooling, and networking fundamentals.
• Deep familiarity with containers (Docker) and container orchestration (Kubernetes) at scale.
• Experience working with cloud providers (AWS, Azure, GCP) or sysadmin/SRE experience in data centers.
• Experience designing, building, and operating high-scale observability or infrastructure systems.
• Experience with CNIs or cloud networking infrastructure.