Software Engineer (Backend, Distributed Systems)

Company Background

Censys’ mission is to be the one place to understand everything on the internet. Frustrated by the lack of trustworthy Internet intelligence, we set out to create the industry’s most comprehensive, accurate, and up-to-date map of the Internet. Today, Censys delivers real-time Internet intelligence and actionable threat insights to global governments, over 50% of the Fortune 500, and leading threat intelligence providers worldwide.

Location: This position is remote within the United States.

Role Summary: 

We’re looking to hire a Software Engineer (Backend, Distributed Systems) to build scalable services, APIs, frameworks, and internal tooling that process large amounts of data and make them highly available, providing direct value to customers and other parts of our organization. Censys operates distributed infrastructure for Internet-wide scanning, and you will help us continue our mission to build high-quality datasets, APIs, and engineering foundations that turn research and detection ideas into production-ready capabilities.

At Censys, we believe in working iteratively while keeping the big picture in mind. We’re expanding our data platform to enable future products and features that make the Internet more explainable by adding richer context and showing complex relationships. We’re looking for someone who is curious, collaborative, and excited to grow while contributing to our mission.

What You’ll Do:

Help build large scale, real-time services and applications which leverage our massive datasets to power internal APIs and external applications.

• Build tooling, libraries, frameworks, and services that support security, research and data platform initiatives.


• Productionize prototypes into reliable internal tools, services, or platform capabilities.


• Participate in planning and technical discussions with engineering and product teams to help build the right solutions.


• Develop and maintain systems such as data pipelines, messaging systems, databases, caching layers, and services that run in the cloud or on-prem.


• Work with Machine Learning Engineers and Security Researchers to realize solutions that affect security outcomes.

Skills You Have:

• 3+ years of software engineering experience building distributed systems (i.e. data ingestion pipelines, databases, services).


• Experience with object-oriented programming - we use Go.


• Experience with at least one cloud provider, like: AWS, Azure, or GCP.


• Experience or familiarity with message queue technologies, like: AWS Kinesis , Google Pub/Sub, Kafka, or other.


• Experience working with databases, like: BigTable, Cloud Spanner, HBase, Cassandra, or other.


• Understanding of core distributed systems concepts such as scalability, fault tolerance, and reliability.


• Familiarity with using AI.


• Ability to write understandable, testable code with an eye towards maintainability.


• Strong communication skills and the ability to work effectively with other engineers and product managers.

Things that make you stand out:

• Familiarity with gRPC or REST.


• Familiarity with data serialization technologies, like: Protobuf, MessagePack, etc.


• Experience building, deploying, or maintaining containerized services in Kubernetes.


• An understanding of how the Internet works; how machines and services communicate using defined protocols / standards.


• Any Security Domain knowledge is a bonus

For candidates located in high cost of living locations (Seattle, San Francisco Bay Area, or New York City Metro), the salary range for this position is $137,000 - $169,000 + bonus eligibility and equity.

For candidates located in any other US location, the salary range for this position is $120,000 - $157,000 + bonus eligibility and equity.

In addition to our great compensation package, our benefits are effective on day one and include but are not limited to: 401k match, health, vision, dental, and more! Please see our careers page for more details.

Our roots are in Ann Arbor, Michigan and our innovation is fueled by the team’s global perspectives. For this role, we are open to remote employees across the continental US and Canada.

Note to external recruiters/agencies: We are not currently engaging with third-party agencies for this role and will not accept unsolicited outreach. We kindly ask that you do not submit resumes or candidate profiles to our team.

California Privacy Rights Notice

Pursuant to the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), we are providing you with notice that we collect personal information from job applicants for business purposes, including evaluating your candidacy for employment, conducting interviews, and, if applicable, completing the hiring process. The categories of information we may collect include identifiers (such as name and contact information), professional or employment-related information (such as work history, education, and references), and other information you provide in your application. We do not sell or share your personal information. For more information on how we use and protect your personal information, and your rights under the CCPA, please refer to our .