Staff Software Engineer, Distributed Systems, Generative AI

About the role

What To Expect
As a Staff Software Engineer on the Bottlerocket team, you will architect and operate the backend infrastructure that powers Tesla's internal Generative AI platform. You will own critical, high-throughput services end-to-end and drive technical decisions across the stack. This role demands deep systems expertise - you will be solving hard problems around concurrency, reliability, and scale in a fast-moving environment where the playbook is still being written.
What You'll Do
Design, build, and operate production systems that handle high-throughput, low-latency workloads at scale
Own backend services end-to-end: from API design and data modeling through deployment, observability, and incident response
Drive architectural decisions for complex systems involving event streaming, caching, service mesh, and workload orchestration
Partner with ML engineers, product teams, and infrastructure teams to translate requirements into robust, scalable backend solutions
Mentor engineers across the team, establish engineering best practices, and raise the bar for code quality and system design
Lead capacity planning and reliability engineering to maintain high availability for business-critical services
What You'll Bring
8+ years of experience building and operating production distributed systems
Strong, production-level proficiency in Go and Python
Deep expertise with Kubernetes, Docker, and container orchestration in production environments
Hands-on experience with message brokers and event streaming systems like Kafka
Solid background with relational and analytical databases (Postgres, ClickHouse, or similar) and caching layers (Redis)
Strong understanding of networking fundamentals: HTTP/2, gRPC, WebSockets, TLS, and reverse proxy architectures (Envoy)
Experience with observability stacks: Prometheus, Grafana, structured logging, and distributed tracing
Proven experience with CI/CD pipelines, GitOps workflows, and infrastructure-as-code (Helm, Terraform)
Proficient in leveraging AI coding tools (e.g., Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Cursor) to accelerate development
Demonstrated ability to navigate ambiguity, make pragmatic tradeoffs, and deliver in environments where standards are still emerging as well as a problem-solving mindset with strong attention to detail and a preference for simple, correct solutions over clever ones
Benefits
Compensation and Benefits
Along with competitive pay, as a full-time Tesla employee, you are eligible for the following benefits at day 1 of hire:
Medical plans > plan options with $0 payroll deduction
Family-building, fertility, adoption and surrogacy benefits
Dental (including orthodontic coverage) and vision plans, both have options with a $0 paycheck contribution
Company Paid (Health Savings Accounts) HSA Contribution when enrolled in the High-Deductible medical plan with HSA
Healthcare and Dependent Care Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA)
401(k) with employer match, Employee Stock Purchase Plans, and other financial benefits
Company paid Basic Life, AD&D
Short-term and long-term disability insurance (90 day waiting period)
Employee Assistance Program
Sick and Vacation time (Flex time for salary positions, Accrued hours for Hourly positions), and Paid Holidays
Back-up childcare and parenting support resources
Voluntary benefits to include: critical illness, hospital indemnity, accident insurance, theft & legal services, and pet insurance
Weight Loss and Tobacco Cessation Programs
Tesla Babies program
Commuter benefits
Employee discounts and perks program
Expected Compensation
$200,000 - $300,000/annual salary + cash and stock awards + benefits
Pay offered may vary depending on multiple individualized factors, including market location, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. The total compensation package for this position may also include other elements dependent on the position offered. Details of participation in these benefit plans will be provided if an employee receives an offer of employment.
, Tesla