Software Engineer, Distributed Systems
Company websitefal.ai (fal, opens in new tab)
Base salary $180K to $250K
Employer-published annual base salary, USD. Advertised base range in San Francisco, CA
You apply on the employer's own site. Six Figure Work does not handle applications.
- LocationSan Francisco, CA
- WorkplaceWorkplace not stated
- Status at last checkSource accepting applications when checked
- Last checked (3 h ago) · observed since
About this job
fal is the generative media ecosystem powering the next generation of AI products. We build the infrastructure, tools, and model access that teams need to move from idea to production, and do it at scale without compromise. For developers and enterprises, fal is the foundation that makes generative media not just possible, but practical: a unified platform where high-performance inference, orchestration, and observability come together to unlock new categories of AI-native products.
As generative media reshapes industries across a market projected to grow by hundreds of billions over the next decade, fal is becoming the ecosystem that ambitious teams build on.
About this role:
You are an experienced software engineer who is passionate about building large-scale computing platforms. You have experience building systems that remain reliable under high traffic, partial failures, and changing capacity. You know how to deliver reliability, performance, and scale with minimum operational load.
What you'll do:
Take ownership of one or more of the Rust/Python systems that power our AI inference and large-scale GPU computing platform
Design for 100x growth in workloads and GPU capacity, with reliable, low-latency execution across the globe
Use AI aggressively to accelerate development and automate repetitive operations, alerting, and recovery
You will specialize in one or more of these critical areas:
Request routing and queuing on a global scale
App deployment and autoscaling
Worker orchestration and placement
GPU fleet autoscaling and capacity management
GPU fleet lifecycle automation: provisioning, diagnostics & recovery, upgrades, tracking
Global file storage, caching and distribution
Global IP backbone: private networking across datacenters, elastic public IPs, ACLs/firewalls, private connectivity
Workload execution: containerization, globally distributed filesystems, RAM/VRAM snapshotting
Qualifications:
3+ years building and operating large-scale production systems, with a track record of reliability and scale
Strong Rust and/or Python skills
Strong systems fundamentals, with technical depth relevant to your specialization: distributed coordination, scheduling, fault tolerance, Linux, networking, storage, or capacity management
Experience building and using observability to drive performance and reliability decisions
Clear communication, sound technical judgment, and the initiative to move quickly, drive decisions across teams, and own systems from design through production
Nice to have:
Multi-tenant compute platforms, AI inference or training infrastructure, GPU workload scheduling
High-performance systems programming: async runtimes, zero-copy, memory-safe concurrency
Linux systems engineering and fleet automation: configuration management, kernel and driver debugging, safe upgrades, and automated recovery
Distributed filesystems like JuiceFS and Lustre
Experience with Nvidia/AMD GPU infrastructure; DCGM, NVLink, RDMA, InfiniBand/RoCEv2
Global networking and routing: BGP, ECMP, tunnels, eBPF, Geneve
What we offer at fal:
Interesting and challenging work
A lot of learning and growth opportunities
Regular team events and offsites
U.S. EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY INFORMATION:
fal provides equal employment opportunities to applicants and employees without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, protected veteran status, disability, or any other classification protected by applicable law.
Source: fal on Ashby · View original posting (opens in new tab)
This listingSoftware Engineer, Distributed Systems$180K to $250K
Senior/Staff Software Engineer, Core Product$180K to $250K
Staff Security Engineer, Infrastructure$180K to $250K
Senior Software Engineer, Product$180K to $250K
Strategic Finance$180K to $220K
Senior Software Engineer, Full Stack (Serverless)$180K to $230K
Senior/Staff Software Engineer, Forward Deployed$180K to $250K
Chart as a table
| Role | Published base |
|---|---|
| Software Engineer, Distributed Systems (this listing) | $180K - $250K |
| Senior/Staff Software Engineer, Core Product | $180K - $250K |
| Staff Security Engineer, Infrastructure | $180K - $250K |
| Senior Software Engineer, Product | $180K - $250K |
| Strategic Finance | $180K - $220K |
| Senior Software Engineer, Full Stack (Serverless) | $180K - $230K |
| Senior/Staff Software Engineer, Forward Deployed | $180K - $250K |
Observed changes
- Began meeting the published-salary criteria
- First observed on the employer's board
- Observed since
- Employer-stated posting date
- 2025-07-21
Where this pay comes from
Location as the employer wrote it: San Francisco
USD 180,000 – 250,000 · 1 YEAR · Salary
- Method
- Structured pay field published by the employer
- Checked
- Rule set
- us-base-v2
The employer's job board publishes this pay as a dedicated data field. We read the field directly; no interpretation was needed.
What we verified
- The pay figures come from the employer's own listing, quoted exactly above.
- The pay is an annual base salary in US dollars with a minimum of at least $100,000.
- The role was publicly listed on the employer's job board when last checked.
We do not verify what the employer will actually offer, whether the employer is still recruiting for the role, or anything beyond what the employer published. Full methodology.
