Senior C++ Engineer - DuckDuckGo

Who We Are

DuckDuckGo is the online protection company and remote-first team of 400+ on a mission to raise the standard of trust online. Founded in 2008 and profitable since 2014, annual revenue now exceeds $100m USD and millions use our browser on Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android, our search engine, and the DuckDuckGo subscription. We also offer private, useful, and optional AI, including Duck.ai, which lets you chat privately with ChatGPT, Claude, and other AIs.

Our culture of trust, inclusivity, and empowered project management underpins everything we do, where each team member takes full ownership of their projects, from scoping and execution to postmortem.

Your Team and Role

Working on the C++ Functional Team, you'll build the high-performance code at the core of DuckDuckGo's browser using modern C++ and Chromium, and work on related projects.

You can expect to work on projects like:

• Implement tracker blocking that stops hidden trackers on every site without slowing page loads.
• Bring VPN and Personal Information Removal into the browser through the DuckDuckGo subscription.
• Catch startup and responsiveness regressions automatically, so the browser stays fast as it grows.

As a Senior C++/Chromium Engineer, you'll lead complex projects from proposal through post-mortem. You'll turn vague problems into clear plans, build them in a large modern C++ codebase, and use metrics to show they worked. Some days that means low-level systems work. Others, it means architecture decisions the whole team builds on. You'll collaborate with design and product, mostly asynchronously, to build features people use to protect their privacy.

About You

• Ability to lead and collaborate on high-impact, complex projects from proposal through post-mortem
• Skills to wrangle vague problems, propose innovative solutions, and execute them with a strong focus on metrics
• 7+ years of software engineering experience
• Advanced modern C++ expertise (C++23 or newer), including memory management, concurrency, and performance profiling
• Experience driving technical work end-to-end on large-scale C++ codebases
• Comfort with large build systems, debuggers, and profilers
• Experience shipping software to a large consumer audience
• Solid computer science foundation (algorithms and data structures)
• Bonus: Windows development experience
• Bonus: Experience with browsers (Chromium, WebKit, WebView), game engines, or large desktop applications

Compensation & Benefits

• Salary: $178,500 USD annually and stock options. Transparent compensation across the organization.
• Health Benefits: Company-sponsored health benefits for team members based in the United States.
• Support Guide Perks: Paid parental leave, home office setup, and co-working allowances.

Additional Details

• Flexible work arrangement with no core hours (average 40 hours per week).
• Required to attend meetings on camera via video conferencing.
• Expect to travel at least twice a year: once for all-hands meetup and once for a team retreat (4-5 days each).
• Successful candidates must pass a background check.