Staff Software Engineer – Networking & DNS Infrastructure

BlueCat

. Design and implement components of a high-performance DNS engine, including resolvers, forwarders, caching layers, and request-processing pipelines .

Posted 9/15/2026full-timeToronto • CanadaLead💰 CA$160,000 - CA$180,000 per yearWebsite

Core Competencies

Role fit

Core Competencies

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Demonstrates expertise in systems programming with Rust, focusing on performance-sensitive concurrent code and DNS protocol features. Proficient in observability practices and customer engagement to enhance product features and reliability.

Highest-signal resume keywords

Rust ProgrammingDNS Protocol FeaturesPerformance OptimizationObservability PracticesCustomer Engagement

ATS Keywords

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills

Systems ProgrammingAsync ProgrammingPerformance-Sensitive CodeBenchmarkingProfilingTest-First MindsetAllocator TuningLock-Free ProgrammingDNS InternalsControl-Plane/Data-Plane Architecture

Soft Skills

Strong Communication SkillsCustomer Empathy

Tools & Technologies

TokioPrometheusGRPCProtobuf

Industry Keywords

DNSTCPUDPTLSHTTPDNSSECECSDnstap

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

DNSGRPCOpen SourcePrometheusRust

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Design and implement components of a high-performance DNS engine, including resolvers, forwarders, caching layers, and request-processing pipelines
Implement and harden DNS protocol features across UDP/TCP, DNS-over-HTTPS, DNS-over-TLS, DNSSEC, EDNS Client Subnet, and related standards
Build traffic-management and reliability features, including global server load balancing, health-checking, policy evaluation, response rewriting, and threat/security filtering
Profile and optimize hot paths involving memory allocation, tries, caches, connection pooling, and multiplexing using benchmarks
Integrate the data plane with control-plane services and distribute configuration updates across deployed nodes
Own observability through metrics, structured logging/tracing, and diagnostics
Write unit, integration, and component tests; maintain linting, formatting, dependency hygiene, and security advisories
Listen directly to customers through support escalations, field reports, and conversations
Partner with product management to translate customer pain points into scoped features and shape the roadmap
Reproduce and diagnose customer-reported issues using production traffic patterns and design root-cause fixes
Improve the performance, resilience, and security of a critical-path DNS service

Requirements

What you’ll need

Strong systems programming experience in Rust, including async programming with tokio
Solid grasp of networking fundamentals: TCP/UDP, TLS, HTTP, and ideally DNS or another wire protocol
Experience writing performance-sensitive concurrent code
Experience using benchmarks and profiling
Test-first, correctness-oriented mindset, including attention to edge cases, graceful shutdown, backpressure, and deterministic behavior under concurrency
Comfort working across a large workspace: crates/modules, shared libraries, plugin boundaries, and CI
Strong communication skills and genuine customer empathy
Open source work in the Rust/tokio ecosystem is a major plus
Knowledge of DNS internals, including record types, SOA/TTL handling, DNSSEC, ECS, and dnstap
Experience with Prometheus metrics, tracing, and production observability practices
Experience with Protobuf/gRPC, service discovery, and control-plane/data-plane architectures
Experience with allocator tuning, lock-free/atomic programming, and low-level performance work
Experience upgrading language toolchains and managing dependency/security posture over time
Experience working directly with customers or in a product-partnered engineering role

Benefits

Comp & perks

Professional Development Budget
Dedicated Wellness Days and Wellness Week
Lifestyle Spending Account
Employee Recognition Program
Discretionary bonus plan
Inclusive and diverse workplace culture
Enriching employee programs