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Remote Distributed Systems Engineer Jobs in Seattle, WA

Motion Applied

Systems Engineer - NA

Seattle, WA · Remote

Evidence of involvement in testing & validation of distributed electronic and software systems ... Experience with programming skills, including working with version control tools. * Experience with ...

YO AI Labs

Backend Java Developer - Remote

Seattle, WA · Remote

$60 - $110/hr

Backend Java Developer Job Type: Contractor Location: Remote Job Overview We are seeking ... Experience with high-availability or distributed systems. * Background in AI-driven or data ...

YO AI Labs

Backend Java Developer - Remote

Seattle, WA · Remote

$60 - $110/hr

Backend Java Developer Job Type: Contractor Location: Remote Job Overview We are seeking ... Experience with high-availability or distributed systems. * Background in AI-driven or data ...

VAST Data

Forward Deployed Engineer

Seattle, WA · On-site +1

About the Role As a Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE), you are a core member of our engineering team ... Distributed Systems & Storage : Deep, foundational knowledge of distributed systems, high ...

Hubble Network

Wireless Systems Engineer

Seattle, WA · On-site +1

$140K - $190K/yr

As a Wireless Systems Engineer, you will be part of the team developing and implementing algorithms ... remote work option (for senior/more experienced candidates). AN IDEAL CANDIDATE HAS * A Sense of ...

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Remote Distributed Systems Engineer information

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$60.9K

$144.8K

$190.1K

How much do remote distributed systems engineer jobs pay per year?

As of Sep 10, 2026, the average yearly pay for remote distributed systems engineer in Seattle, WA is $144,774.00, according to ZipRecruiter salary data. Most workers in this role earn between $111,500.00 and $178,700.00 per year, depending on experience, location, and employer.

What are the most commonly searched types of Distributed Systems Engineer jobs in Seattle, WA?

The most popular types of Distributed Systems Engineer jobs in Seattle, WA are:

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For Remote Distributed Systems Engineer jobs in Seattle, WA, the most frequently searched job titles are:

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What cities near Seattle, WA are hiring for Remote Distributed Systems Engineer jobs?

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Remote Distributed Systems Engineer jobs near you
Infographic showing various Remote Distributed Systems Engineer job openings in Seattle, WA as of September 2026, with employment types broken down into 1% As Needed, 84% Full Time, 10% Part Time, 4% Contract, and 1% Nights. Highlights an 86% Physical, 2% Hybrid, and 12% Remote job distribution, with an average salary of $144,774 per year, or $69.6 per hour.

Principal / Staff Backend Engineer - Distributed Systems

Seattle, WA • On-site, Remote

widenet
Marketing • 1 - 10 employees
Learn more about widenetexternal

$170K - $200K/yr

Full-time

Re-posted 7 days ago

Job description

Principal / Staff Backend Engineer - Distributed Systems
Full-Time | Remote-Friendly | Equity Included
We are partnering with a venture-backed technology company to place two senior backend engineers into newly opened Staff and Principal-level roles. The platform is already in production and operating at scale - this is not a greenfield build. These engineers will step into real ownership of complex, high-volume systems from day one.
We are recruiting for two distinct technical backgrounds simultaneously and expect to place one engineer from each track. If your experience fits either profile below, you are a complete candidate - you do not need to cover both.
What You'll Own
These roles sit at the intersection of backend engineering and production operations. The work involves designing and operating services that process very high query and data volumes across a shared, multi-tenant environment. The core technical challenge is building systems that stay fast, fair, and predictable regardless of how much variance exists across customer workloads - and doing so without a dedicated SRE or platform team to hand things off to.
Engineers in these roles own their systems fully: architecture decisions, implementation, deployment, observability, and on-call. If you prefer writing specs over writing code, or handing finished designs to an ops team, this is not the right fit. If you want deep technical ownership and the ability to drive how a production platform evolves, it is.
You'll Be Successful Here If You Can
  • Design and operate services that handle extreme variance in workload size without one customer impacting another
  • Build systems that fail gracefully, recover predictably, and do not require manual intervention to stay healthy
  • Identify and eliminate bottlenecks across complex, multi-stage data pipelines
  • Establish engineering patterns your teammates can actually use - not just document them
  • Own infrastructure, code, and deployment configuration as a single responsibility rather than separate concerns
Track 1 - Distributed Services & Infrastructure
You have spent your career building and running high-volume, low-latency backend services. You understand what happens to a shared system when traffic patterns shift, tenants misbehave, or upstream dependencies slow down - and you know how to engineer around it. Core areas of depth likely include:
  • Distributed systems design and production operation
  • Multitenancy, workload isolation, and resource fairness
  • Queuing, scheduling, admission control, and backpressure
  • Tail-latency management and performance tuning under load
  • Reliability patterns, failure recovery, and incident response
  • Large-scale relational and/or NoSQL data stores
  • Infrastructure as code and deployment automation
Strong candidates for this track have worked on infrastructure or service teams at cloud-scale companies, high-volume SaaS platforms, or other environments where the system itself is the product.
Track 2 - Unstructured Data & Document Pipelines
You have built the systems behind large collections of complex, unstructured content - ingestion, processing, indexing, storage, and retrieval at volume. You understand the engineering challenges that arise when documents vary in size, structure, and relationship to one another, and you have built pipelines robust enough to handle that variance reliably. Core areas of depth likely include:
  • High-volume document ingestion and transformation pipelines
  • Search, indexing, and retrieval systems at scale
  • Data modeling for heterogeneous, relationship-rich document collections
  • SQL, Cosmos DB, or comparable distributed data stores
  • Large-scale asynchronous processing architectures
  • Deduplication, document threading, metadata extraction, and content enrichment
Strong candidates for this track have built the data layer at search companies, content platforms, data infrastructure businesses, or SaaS products where managing large volumes of complex documents is core to the product.
What We're Looking For Across Both Tracks
  • 7+ years of backend engineering experience at Staff or Principal level - or equivalent demonstrated scope
  • A proven track record building, shipping, and operating production systems under real load
  • Experience with large-scale, latency-sensitive services
  • A preference for staying technical and hands-on rather than transitioning into management or advisory work
  • The ability to own a problem from whiteboard to production without handoffs
Compensation
Base salary: $170,000 - $200,000 depending on experience and background. Equity is included and is a meaningful part of the total package. Comprehensive benefits.
This is a direct-hire, full-time position. The compensation range above reflects base salary only. Equity grant details provided during the interview process. Final offer determined based on experience, depth, and qualifications

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