alkira
Principal Software Engineer, Forwarding Plane
San Jose, California · Principal
Stay score
odds of building a lasting career here
Sponsors, but it's cap-subject — you still face the weighted lottery (~61% per draw at Level IV). Good if you win; have a cap-exempt backup on your list.
Lottery odds assume a STEM candidate.
Personalize to your clock →H-1B wage level
the lottery is wage-weighted — each level is one more entry
$19,802 more — $187,075 — moves this role to Level II and 2 lottery entries. That figure is inside the range the employer already advertised.
Based on the DOL prevailing wage for this occupation and worksite, a base salary of $187,075 would place this position at wage Level II. That figure is within the posted range, and I'd like to target it. This role classifies under "Software Developers" for prevailing-wage purposes.
DOL prevailing wage, 2026-27 wage year · Software Developers (15-1252) · San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA. Wage level is derived by USCIS from the offered wage, occupation and worksite; the occupation shown is inferred from the job title.
Employer immigration record
from this employer's Department of Labor filings
Green-card filing pattern in this occupation
Sourced from Department of Labor LCA, PERM and prevailing-wage disclosure data. Employer matching is by name, so figures may be split across an employer's legal entities. Absence of a filing means none appears in our copy of the data, not that none exists.
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About the role
- This position is a hybrid role and requires onsite collaboration with the team at our San Jose, CA office 2 - 3 times during the week
Responsibilities
- Own the architecture, design, implementation, and long-term technical roadmap of Alkira's core Forwarding Plane platform.
- Drive technical strategy for Forwarding Plane reliability, scalability, observability, and maintainability.
- Design and develop high-performance packet-processing systems and networking services.
- Develop performance-critical software in C for Linux-based environments.
- Optimize packet-processing pipelines for throughput, latency, and resource efficiency.
- Drive end-to-end performance optimization across the networking stack.
- Perform deep performance analysis, profiling, debugging, and tuning of production systems.
- Lead architecture reviews and drive technical decision-making across teams.
- Mentor senior and staff-level engineers on networking and systems design.
- Partner with product management, platform engineering, and security teams to deliver strategic initiatives.
Requirements
- Bachelor's degree in computer science, Computer Engineering, or related discipline
- 12+ years of software engineering experience with significant focus on networking and systems software.
- Expert proficiency in C.
- Extensive systems programming experience in performance-sensitive environments.
- Strong expertise in TCP/IP networking fundamentals and protocols.
- Deep knowledge of:
- Experience with DPDK, VPP, or similar high-performance packet-processing frameworks.
- Proven experience analyzing and optimizing software for performance, scalability, and reliability.
Nice to have
- Knowledge of SD-WAN, SASE, ZTNA, and cloud security architectures.
- Experience with VPP/DPDK, kernel bypass technologies.
- A dvanced Linux networking frameworks.
- Experience contributing to open-source networking projects.
- Strong background in distributed systems and highly available networking services.
- Experience designing and operating multi-tenant cloud networking platforms.
- At Alkira, you'll help shape the next chapter of networking: cloud-like consumption, private-network performance, and total control across the enterprise.
- Individual pay is based on skills, experience and other relevant factors.
Skills
- At Alkira, you'll help shape the next chapter of networking:
- cloud-like consumption, private-network performance, and total control across the enterprise.
Compensation
- This information reflects the anticipated base salary range for this position based on current national data.
- Individual pay is based on skills, experience and other relevant factors.
- Location Based Pay Ranges: $167,273 - $278,789
- We do not tolerate unlawful discrimination in any employment decisions, including recruiting, hiring, compensation, promotion, benefits, discipline, termination, job assignments or training.
Benefits
- We do not tolerate unlawful discrimination in any employment decisions, including recruiting, hiring, compensation, promotion, benefits, discipline, termination, job assignments or training.
Company info
- 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.
Visa & Work Authorization
- We are committed to providing equal employment opportunities to all persons regardless of race, color, ancestry, citizenship, national origin, religion, veteran status, disability, genetic characteristic or information,
This listing is sourced directly from alkira's careers page and normalized into a canonical job model.