Software Engineer - Backend Engineer
Alkira is reinventing networking for the AI era. We're looking for a Software Engineer - Backend Engineer who wants to own products from blank page to production — and operate what you ship. You'll build net-new capabilities and maintain the distributed systems behind Alkira's CSX (Cloud Services Exchange). Ownership here means both shipping the 0→1 and maintaining them.
To learn more about our product and who we are, we invite you to take a look at a quick demonstration or visit our website.
What you'll do
- Take product ideas from 0 to 1: scope, design, build, ship, and own them in production.
- Build and maintain large-scale distributed systems for multi-cloud networking — resiliency, scale, and correctness under real customer load.
- Use AI as a core part of how you ship and operate: agentic workflows, LLM-powered dev loops, and AI tooling to move 5–10x faster than a traditional engineer. We expect you to leverage AI, not just tolerate it.
- Design, build, and maintain APIs and microservices (Java/Spring and Go, PostgreSQL, Kubernetes) — treating the stack as a means to ship and sustain product, not the job itself.
- Operate what you build: customer escalations, on-call, telemetry, and bug fixes are part of ownership, not a separate team's problem. You'll also pick up and maintain existing services in your area.
What we're looking for
- B.S./M.S. (or equivalent) in CS, EE, or a related field, plus 2 years of software engineering experience.
- A builder's instinct: you've taken something from zero to shipped before — and you're also comfortable inheriting, understanding, and improving an existing codebase.
- AI-native workflow: you use tools like Claude Code / Cursor / Copilot daily and have a point of view on how to ship faster with AI.
- Strong CS fundamentals and hands-on Java/Spring and Go, distributed systems, REST API design, DB schema design,
- multithreading.
- Linux/kernel fluency and comfort with container + Kubernetes deployment.
- Security-first thinking for distributed, multi-tenant systems.
- Product and customer empathy — you care about why a feature matters, not just how to build it.
- Networking background (BGP, SD-WAN, overlays, cloud networking) is a strong plus.
- Team player: able to work across teams of varying sizes that may be geographically distributed.
- Ability to multitask and support multiple concurrent projects.
ABOUT ALKIRA
Alkira, a Lumen company, is building the future of enterprise networking: one programmable platform to connect, secure, and operate every cloud, site, partner, data center, and AI workload.
Founded by Amir and Atif Khan, the creators of Viptela and pioneers of the SD-WAN market, Alkira was built to radically simplify how enterprises deploy and manage network infrastructure. Today, as part of Lumen, we are bringing that cloud-native operating model to a global network foundation trusted by the world’s largest enterprises.
Our platform helps customers move faster without managing hardware, stitching together providers, or operating fragmented cloud networks. Teams can build and scale connectivity on demand, apply consistent security and segmentation, and gain visibility across distributed environments from one place.
At Alkira, you’ll help shape the next chapter of networking: cloud-like consumption, private-network performance, and total control across the enterprise. We move fast, solve hard problems, and build technology that changes how global businesses connect.
Join us and help build the future of networking.
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