Sr Staff Engineer - Core Infrastructure

About the Role

We are seeking a Senior Staff Engineer (L6) to lead the technical strategy and evolution of Uber’s Core Infrastructure Platform. As a Senior Staff Engineer, you are the principal architect of an ecosystem that handles 1M+ concurrent trips and massive-scale ML workloads. You will own the technical roadmap for our Compute, Foundations, and Software Networking stack, driving the shift from "Service Provider" to "Strategic Partner."

We aren't looking for a maintainer; we're looking for a visionary who can drive Platform Engineering 2.0. You will solve the "hard problems" of extreme scale—driving fleet utilization from 26% to 40%+, scaling GPU pools for Generative AI, and ensuring "Security by Design" across a global multi-cloud footprint.

What the Candidate Will Do

• Architect Strategic Efficiency: Own the technical vision to drive fleet-wide CPU utilization and unit-cost optimization through ARM adoption (targeting XM+ cores) and silicon diversity.
• Scale AI & ML Infrastructure: Define the architecture for shared GPU pools and high-performance clusters to support 300x larger ranking models and Autonomous Vehicle data ingestion.
• Modernize the Data Plane: Drive the convergence of Uber’s networking stack toward industry standards (Kubernetes, Envoy, CNI) while enhancing "SkyEdge" for active-active multi-cloud resilience.
• Enforce Foundations & Reliability: Lead the "100% Done-Done" initiative, ensuring every service follows standardized safe-deployment (Starship) and reaches 100% zero-trust authorization.
• Agentic Augmentation: Integrate AI-driven "Minions" and AIOps into the infrastructure to automate 80% of alerts and unlock thousands of years of developer productivity.
• Cross-Org Influence: Partner with Delivery, Rides, and AV teams to ensure the infrastructure isn't just a container, but a competitive advantage that accelerates their time-to-market.
• Mentor Staff+ Engineers: Act as a force multiplier by coaching the next generation of technical leaders and influencing company-wide engineering standards.

Basic Qualifications

• 12+ years of software engineering experience, with a focus on massive-scale distributed systems or infrastructure.
• Proven Track Record at Scale: Experience managing infrastructure that supports millions of concurrent users or petabyte-scale data processing.
• Deep Systems Expertise: Mastery of Kubernetes internals, container runtimes, and the Linux kernel, with the ability to debug "impossible" performance bottlenecks.
• Cloud-Native Fluency: Deep experience with cloud-native networking (Envoy, CNI, Service Mesh) and multi-cloud (AWS/GCP) architecture.
• Coding Proficiency: Expert-level proficiency in Go, Java, or C++.
• Leadership: Demonstrated ability to lead 40+ person technical initiatives and influence VPs and GMs on infrastructure investment.

Preferred Qualifications

• Hardware/Silicon Strategy: Experience optimizing software for ARM architecture or specialized AI hardware (GPUs/TPUs).
• Open Source Leadership: Significant contributions to Kubernetes, CNCF projects, or other major infrastructure open-source communities.
• AIOps & Automation: Experience building self-healing infrastructure or using LLMs/ML to automate infrastructure operations and incident response.
• Zero-Trust Security: Hands-on experience implementing S2S/P2S security models and ransomware-resilient infrastructure.
• Cost-Aware Engineering: A proven history of driving XXM+ in annual P&L savings through architectural efficiency and resource scheduling.

Linux & Kernel Knowledge: Understanding of operating systems, Linux kernel performance tuning, or eBPF.

For New York, NY-based roles: The base salary range for this role is USD$267,000 per year - USD$297,000 per year.

For San Francisco, CA-based roles: The base salary range for this role is USD$267,000 per year - USD$297,000 per year.

For Seattle, WA-based roles: The base salary range for this role is USD$267,000 per year - USD$297,000 per year.

For Sunnyvale, CA-based roles: The base salary range for this role is USD$267,000 per year - USD$297,000 per year.

For all US locations, you will be eligible to participate in Uber's bonus program, and may be offered an equity award & other types of comp. All full-time employees are eligible to participate in a 401(k) plan. You will also be eligible for various benefits. More details can be found at the following link https://jobs.uber.com/en/benefits.

Uber's mission is to reimagine the way the world moves for the better. Here, bold ideas create real-world impact, challenges drive growth, and speed fuels progress. What moves us, moves the world - let's move it forward, together.

Uber is proud to be an Equal Opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, color, religion, national origin, disability, protected Veteran status, age, or any other characteristic protected by law. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know by completing this form.

Offices continue to be central to collaboration and Uber's cultural identity. Unless formally approved to work fully remotely, Uber expects employees to spend at least half of their work time in their assigned office. For certain roles, such as those based at green-light hubs, employees are expected to be in-office for 100% of their time. Please speak with your recruiter to better understand in-office expectations for this role.