Senior Principal Engineer (Data Plane)

Responsibilities

• Architect and build high-throughput, low-latency data plane systems
• Design and optimize packet processing pipelines and traffic handling mechanisms
• Drive performance tuning, debugging, and optimization in production environments
• Design and operate distributed data plane architectures with a focus on scale and resilience
• Build and enhance traffic management capabilities including load balancing, NAT, proxying, and tunneling
• Implement security enforcement within the data path such as firewalling, DPI, ZTNA, and policy engines
• Collaborate cross-functionally across control plane, platform, and security teams
• Lead large-scale technical initiatives and mentor engineers
• Leverage AI-assisted engineering tools effectively

Requirements

• 12+ years of experience in system/software development with a focus on data plane or networking systems
• Strong expertise in Go, Rust, C, or C++ with a focus on concurrency and performance optimization
• Expert-level proficiency in at least one programming language
• Proven track record of building high-throughput, low-latency systems
• Deep understanding of the Linux networking stack, including sockets, epoll, and TCP/IP internals
• Strong knowledge of network protocols (TCP/IP, UDP, DNS, HTTP/HTTPS, TLS)
• Proven ability to design systems for scale, resilience, and fault tolerance
• Strong debugging, profiling, and performance tuning skills
• Demonstrated ability to lead initiatives and drive technical strategy

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience designing and operating distributed data plane architectures
• Familiarity with load balancing, traffic steering, NAT, proxying, and tunneling technologies (IPSec, TLS, QUIC)
• Experience with DPDK, eBPF, or similar packet processing frameworks
• Understanding of data path security enforcement
• Experience with observability and monitoring in high-volume systems
• Effective use of AI tools in software development

About the Company

SonicWall is a cybersecurity forerunner with more than 30 years of expertise, providing relentless security against evasive cyberattacks across cloud, hybrid, and traditional environments.