Staff Engineer, Imunify360 - CloudLinux

CloudLinux is a global remote-first company. We deliver high-volume, low-cost Linux infrastructure and security products that help companies increase operational efficiency.

We are currently hiring Staff Engineers for various projects within the Imunify360 product.

Imunify360 is CloudLinux's multi-layer security suite for Linux web servers, featuring antivirus and malware cleanup, WAF, IDS/IPS, Proactive Defense, patch management (KernelCare/Patchman), and IP/domain reputation. It runs on hundreds of thousands of shared, VPS, and dedicated hosting servers under cPanel, Plesk, DirectAdmin, and standalone configurations.

The engineering organization consists of 60+ engineers in squads covering backend, core, server agent, malware research, WAF/WebShield, and Patchman. Core services are written in Python, while agents and performance-critical paths leverage Go and Rust. Infrastructure runs on Hetzner and bare metal.

Role Mission & Scope

Most complex technical challenges in Imunify360 go beyond individual squads. While squad leads own delivery within their teams, the Staff Engineer ensures technical alignment across the entire product.

As a Staff Engineer, you will be a hands-on technical leader working across the entire product, focusing on critical and high-impact challenges. You will drive technical decisions, improve architecture, establish engineering standards, and help teams build sustainable solutions.

This is an individual contributor role without direct people management responsibilities. You will spend approximately 30–50% of your time writing production code rather than focusing solely on architectural design.

What You Will Own

Architecture and Technical Direction

• Own the end-to-end architecture of Imunify360 as a product: agent ↔ server ↔ cloud backends, data flows, and contracts.
• Write and drive ADRs and RFCs for cross-squad changes. Co-lead architecture syncs with the Technical Director.
• Maintain a living tech-debt and risk register (security, compliance, uptime) with owners and target dates, ensuring top items get roadmap funding.

Cross-Cutting Technical Challenges

• Optimize agent resource footprints (CPU, memory, I/O budgets) for scanning, file monitoring (inotify/fanotify), and WAF on real kernels.
• Improve detection pipeline quality: false positive/negative rates, signature, and ML model rollouts with staged gates and rollback strategies.
• Ensure upgrade and release safety across heterogeneous server fleets (CentOS, AlmaLinux, CloudLinux, Ubuntu, control panels, legacy kernels).
• Scale backends and control costs for reputation, ThreatIntel, and telemetry services.
• Migrate hot paths from Python to Go or Rust where backed by performance data.

Engineering Standards

• Set standards for design reviews, code review, testing strategies, observability (Prometheus/Grafana/Sentry), and secure SDLC (OWASP ASVS, CIS Benchmarks).
• Co-lead SEV1/SEV2 incidents with unclear or cross-squad causes; ensure blameless post-mortems ship within 24 hours and actions are completed.
• Drive AI-augmented SDLC practices across engineering teams.

Technical Leadership & Mentorship

• Mentor senior engineers and squad leads toward staff-level scope.
• Act as a technical bar-raiser in hiring loops for senior and lead engineering roles.
• Serve as the engineering voice in product and sales discussions regarding estimates and feasibility.

Requirements

Must Have

• 10+ years of experience building and operating production software, with 3+ years in a Staff, Principal, or Tech Lead scope spanning multiple teams.
• Strong production experience in Python and at least one of Go or Rust.
• Deep understanding of Linux internals: processes, filesystems, networking, kernel interfaces (inotify/fanotify, eBPF), packaging (RPM/DEB), and systemd.
• Proven track record of designing and running distributed systems at scale (async backends, queues, databases, caching, failure modes).
• Experience owning software that runs on customer infrastructure (agents, daemons, on-premise software), with focus on upgrade safety, backward compatibility, and resource constraint management.
• Security-minded approach: threat modeling, secure coding, and handling untrusted input.
• Excellent written communication skills for driving decisions in async, remote teams across time zones.
• Active daily usage of AI coding tools (Cursor, Claude, MCP-based tools) with critical evaluation of output.

Nice to Have

• Experience in server security: AV/malware detection, WAF (ModSecurity/Coraza), IDS/IPS, rootkit detection, or CVE/patch management.
• Experience with large-scale WordPress and Node.js web application hosting.
• Machine learning in production for classification and detection, including model evaluation and safe rollouts.
• Observability at scale using Prometheus, Grafana, Sentry, ClickHouse, or similar.
• CI/CD experience: GitLab CI, Jenkins, and multi-distro packaging build systems.
• Open-source contributions in security or systems tooling.

Benefits

• Fully remote work with flexible working hours.
• 24 paid vacation days, 10 national holidays, and unlimited sick leave.
• Private medical insurance compensation.
• Co-working space and gym/sports reimbursement.
• Education budget.
• Reward opportunities for patentable innovative ideas.