Senior Remote Distributed Systems Engineer – Cloud-Native Big Data Platform & Infrastructure Development

About arenaflex

At arenaflex, we are on a mission to entertain the world — and we are constantly evolving how stories are imagined, produced, and delivered to a global audience. Today, we stream content in more than 30 languages across 190 countries, delighting over 220 million paid subscribers, and we are expanding into exciting new forms of entertainment, including interactive gaming and live experiences. To power this global vision, our engineering teams build some of the most sophisticated, large-scale data and distributed systems on the planet.

The Data Platform organization at arenaflex is the backbone of that mission. We enable the entire company to harness the power of data to create joy for our members in countless ways. Our teams provide centralized data platforms, tools, and services that empower every business function at arenaflex to make critical, data-driven decisions with confidence. We handle the heavy lifting so that our colleagues can work with data effortlessly, securely, and responsibly. We strive to set the gold standard in building a world-class data ecosystem, as arenaflex leads the way in becoming the most popular and pervasive destination for global digital entertainment.

We are looking for talented Distributed Systems Engineers to help expand and enhance our infrastructure as we pursue our ambitious goal of reaching 500 million members worldwide. We are committed to building a diverse and inclusive team that brings fresh perspectives as we tackle the next generation of engineering challenges. Remote candidates across the United States are encouraged to apply. At arenaflex, we value what you can do — from anywhere.

What You'll Work On

As a Distributed Systems Engineer at arenaflex, you will be embedded in one of our specialized data platform teams, where you will design, build, and operate critical infrastructure that powers data across the company. Our data infrastructure teams include:

• Database Access Platform: This team builds and operates a flexible query gateway that enables data abstractions working at sub-millisecond latencies, allowing arenaflex microservices to more efficiently store, consume, and manage their data. This team plays a vital role in enabling our microservices to meet their ever-growing and evolving data needs. The team is passionate about distributed data systems technology, active in the open-source community, and committed to building and operating what we own. As a small team responsible for business-critical systems, we maintain a culture of feedback, ownership, and engineering excellence.
• Data Platform Infrastructure: This team acts as the foundation for our internal data platforms. Our shared infrastructure and tooling allow arenaflex to rapidly innovate on delivering state-of-the-art data and analytics systems across the organization without having to build custom-tailored platforms for each new use case. To accomplish this, we build high-impact infrastructure, control, and management systems tuned for the demands of running data systems at scale. Many of our tools and systems are written in Python, making this a fantastic team to consider if you enjoy working across multiple languages.
• Data Movement and Processing: This offering provides an offline, self-service, paved-path product that empowers varied user personas across arenaflex to meet their low-latency data movement and processing requirements. It enables abstraction across complex streaming frameworks such as Kafka and Flink, offers a template-driven processing experience, and invests heavily in operational automation, reliability, and tooling for predictable data quality.
• Big Data Compute: Responsible for providing the cloud-native platform for distributed data processing at arenaflex. This team is essential for batch data processing in the Data Platform. It offers support for Spark, ETL pipelines into our petabyte-scale data warehouse, and access to that data using Spark and Presto/Trino. It also delivers sub-second latency for specific classes of queries using Druid. We are seeking exceptional talent with experience in Spark, Presto/Trino, Druid, Iceberg, and distributed database systems in general. Roles within this team involve tackling fascinating and challenging problems of working with data at scale, building new features and performance improvements, and working closely with open-source communities to shape project direction and make meaningful contributions.
• Big Data Orchestration: Provides the platform for designing, orchestrating, and executing big data jobs and workflows in a self-serve manner. These platforms host the core services running all ETL and machine learning jobs on the Big Data systems at arenaflex. These fully distributed systems are continually evolving to handle arenaflex scale using cutting-edge technology. We are moving toward event-driven and intelligent orchestration that will require minimal user input and intervention.

Key Responsibilities

• Architect, design, and implement highly available, fault-tolerant, and scalable distributed systems that power arenaflex's global data platform.
• Build new features, services, and infrastructure components that enable product engineers, data scientists, and analysts to work with massive datasets efficiently.
• Solve challenging real-world business problems at scale by applying your programming and analytical problem-solving skills.
• Drive cross-functional initiatives and collaborate closely with software engineers, product managers, and technical program managers across the organization.
• Contribute to open-source communities and share arenaflex's engineering experiences through blog posts, conference talks, and OSS contributions.
• Participate in design reviews, code reviews, and architectural discussions to maintain high engineering standards.
• Mentor junior engineers and contribute to a culture of continuous learning and engineering excellence.
• Operate and maintain business-critical systems, including on-call responsibilities, ensuring reliability and performance.

Essential Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field (or equivalent practical experience).
• 2+ years of professional experience building large-scale distributed systems features or applications.
• Proficiency in the design and development of RESTful web services.
• Solid experience building and operating scalable, fault-tolerant, distributed systems in production.
• Strong proficiency in Java or another object-oriented programming language.
• Comfort with multi-threading, concurrency, and the challenges that come with building concurrent systems.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to debug complex distributed systems issues.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with big data ecosystems such as Apache Spark, Kafka, Flink, Druid, Iceberg, or Presto/Trino.
• Familiarity with cloud platforms such as AWS, GCP, or Azure, and cloud-native architectures.
• Experience contributing to open-source projects or active participation in open-source communities.
• Knowledge of database internals, query optimization, and large-scale data storage systems.
• Experience with Python, Scala, or other modern programming languages in addition to Java.
• Familiarity with containerization and orchestration technologies such as Docker and Kubernetes.
• Prior experience working in a fully remote engineering team.

Skills and Competencies for Success

• System Design: Ability to architect distributed systems that are resilient, observable, and maintainable at scale.
• Technical Communication: Clear, concise communication skills, with the ability to explain complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Collaboration: A team player who thrives in a collaborative, cross-functional environment and values diverse perspectives.
• Ownership: A sense of ownership and accountability for the systems you build and the outcomes they drive.
• Continuous Learning: A passion for learning new technologies, staying current with industry trends, and sharing knowledge with peers.
• Bias for Action: The ability to move fast, iterate quickly, and deliver high-quality solutions under time constraints.

Career Growth and Learning Opportunities

At arenaflex, your growth is our priority. As a Distributed Systems Engineer, you will have access to:

• Mentorship from some of the brightest engineers in the industry who have built systems serving hundreds of millions of users.
• Internal mobility opportunities across teams, disciplines, and geographies.
• A generous learning budget for conferences, certifications, and training programs.
• Opportunities to contribute to and lead open-source projects, gaining visibility in the global engineering community.
• Career tracks that allow you to grow as an individual contributor or pivot into engineering management, depending on your interests.
• Regular technical talks, workshops, and knowledge-sharing sessions within the engineering organization.

Work Environment and Company Culture

arenaflex is proud to be a fully remote-friendly company that values outcomes over output. Our culture is built on:

• Freedom and Responsibility: We give our employees the context to make great decisions and the responsibility to deliver impact.
• Inclusion and Diversity: We are committed to building a diverse team that reflects the global audience we serve. We believe that a variety of perspectives drives innovation.
• High Performance: We hire exceptional people and trust them to do their best work. We surround ourselves with people who raise the bar.
• Curiosity and Innovation: We encourage experimentation, learning from failure, and continuous improvement.
• Wellbeing: We invest in the health and happiness of our employees through comprehensive wellness programs, mental health resources, and a culture that respects work-life balance.

Compensation and Benefits

While specific compensation may vary based on experience, location, and team, this role offers a competitive hourly rate of approximately $25/hour, along with a comprehensive benefits package that typically includes:

• Health, dental, and vision insurance for you and your dependents.
• Generous paid time off, holidays, and parental leave.
• 401(k) retirement savings plan with company matching.
• Equity or stock options where applicable.
• Home office stipend and monthly remote work allowance.
• Annual learning and development budget.
• Wellness programs, mental health support, and access to premium subscription services.

How to Apply

If you are passionate about building distributed systems at a massive scale, excited by the challenge of working with petabytes of data, and eager to contribute to a culture of engineering excellence, we would love to hear from you. This is a rare opportunity to join a world-class engineering organization that values your craft, invests in your growth, and trusts you to do your best work — from anywhere.

At arenaflex, we don't just build systems; we build the future of entertainment. Bring your curiosity, your technical depth, and your unique perspective, and help us shape what comes next. Apply today and become part of a team that is redefining what's possible in global digital entertainment.

arenaflex is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.