Software Engineer - Distributed Systems
eBay · Austin, United States · 1d ago
At eBay, we're more than a global ecommerce leader — we’re changing the way the world shops and sells. Our platform empowers millions of buyers and sellers in more than 190 markets around the world. We’re committed to pushing boundaries and leaving our mark as we reinvent the future of ecommerce for enthusiasts.
Our customers are our compass, authenticity thrives, bold ideas are welcome, and everyone can bring their unique selves to work — every day. We're in this together, sustaining the future of our customers, our company, and our planet.
Join a team of passionate thinkers, innovators, and dreamers — and help us connect people and build communities to create economic opportunity for all.
* This role cannot offer any sort of visa sponsorship *
About the team and the role:
Cloud Security Engineering plays a critical role in protecting eBay’s cloud infrastructure by building the security services that power identity, access control, data protection, and policy enforcement at global scale. We are hiring a Distributed Systems Engineer in Austin, TX to design, build, and operate highly available, fault-tolerant systems that strengthen platform trust, resilience, and security.
This role sits at the intersection of distributed systems, cloud security, and AI-assisted engineering. Our team works in an AI-first environment. Autonomous coding assistants like Claude Code, Cursor, and their CLIs are standard in how we build, implement, review, and operate software. We are looking for someone who not only uses these tools optimally, but also brings strong judgment about the guardrails required to apply them safely in security-critical environments.
What you will accomplish:
Design, build, and operate cloud-scale distributed security services that improve the availability, scalability, and resilience of critical platform capabilities across eBay’s infrastructure.
Architect backend systems and APIs that perform efficiently under low-latency, high-reliability requirements, while handling failures gracefully across regions, services, and dependencies.
Use AI-first engineering workflows in daily development, applying agentic coding tools for design exploration, implementation, refactoring, testing, code review, and incident investigation to improve engineering velocity and quality.
Build and strengthen the guardrails for safe AI-assisted development on security-sensitive systems, including automated verification in CI, scoped permissions, sandbox execution, review patterns, and clear boundaries for agent behavior.
Design and operate MCP servers and integrations that connect AI agents to internal systems such as telemetry, runbooks, policy stores, deployment tooling, and ticketing, with strong authentication, authorization, scoping, and auditability.
Advance secure-by-design and operational excellence practices by improving observability, automating appropriate engineering toil, contributing to postmortems and design reviews, and mentoring others on effective and responsible use of AI in engineering.
What you will bring:
7+ years of software engineering experience passionate about distributed systems. A bachelor’s degree or a master’s degree or equivalent experience in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field is required.
Strong programming skills in Java and/or Go are required. You should also have proven knowledge of distributed computing fundamentals such as replication, consistency models, leader election, consensus, and fault tolerance.
Hands-on experience building production software with agentic coding tools such as Claude Code and Cursor, including use of CLI and headless workflows for scripting, automation, and delivery.
Practical judgment in AI-assisted development, including the ability to define verification, testing, review, and permission guardrails so AI-generated changes meet production and security standards.
Experience designing systems using microservices, event-driven, or component-based architectures, along with hands-on work with SQL and NoSQL datastores and distributed messaging systems.
Experience building security or infrastructure platforms such as IAM, policy engines, secrets management, or encryption services; familiarity with MCP, Kubernetes, service meshes, Zero Trust, cloud-native security patterns, or compliance-focused systems is a plus.
* This role cannot offer any sort of visa sponsorship *
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Additional Details
The base pay range for this position is expected in the range below:
$118,800 - $205,600Base pay offered may vary depending on multiple individualized factors, including location, skills, and experience. The total compensation package for this position may also include other elements, including a target bonus and restricted stock units (as applicable) in addition to a full range of medical, financial, and/or other benefits (including 401(k) eligibility and various paid time off benefits, such as PTO and parental leave). Details of participation in these benefit plans will be provided if an employee receives an offer of employment.
If hired, employees will be in an “at-will position” and the Company reserves the right to modify base salary (as well as any other discretionary payment or compensation program) at any time, including for reasons related to individual performance, Company or individual department/team performance, and market factors.
Remote roles are not eligible for U.S. visa sponsorship.
eBay is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status, and disability, or other legally protected status. If you have a need that requires accommodation, please contact us at talent@ebay.com. We will make every effort to respond to your request for accommodation as soon as possible. View our accessibility statement to learn more about eBay's commitment to ensuring digital accessibility for people with disabilities. It is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability.
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