Staff Software Engineer (Data Plane) - C, C++ or Go

 

Role Overview

We are looking for a highly skilled Staff Software Engineer (Data Plane) to join the SonicWall Cloud Secure Edge (CSE) team. In this role, you will lead the design and development of high-performance, cloud-native data plane systems that power a modern Security Service Edge (SSE) platform.

You will be responsible for building scalable, low-latency traffic processing pipelines that enforce security policies and enable secure, Zero Trust access to applications, SaaS, and enterprise resources from any device, anywhere. This includes evolving a distributed data plane that delivers capabilities such as ZTNA, Secure Web Gateway, and VPN-as-a-Service, replacing legacy appliances with high-throughput, cloud-delivered enforcement systems.

 

What You’ll Do

• Design and build high-performance data plane systems for traffic processing and policy enforcement
• Develop low-latency, scalable packet processing pipelines handling large volumes of network traffic
• Implement L4–L7 inspection, filtering, and enforcement mechanisms
• Optimize systems for throughput, latency, and resource efficiency (CPU, memory, networking stack)
• Drive architectural decisions around distributed data plane design and traffic routing
• Work closely with control plane teams to integrate policy distribution and enforcement
• Debug and resolve performance bottlenecks in production traffic paths
• Mentor engineers and promote best practices in systems programming and performance engineering

 

What You’ll Bring

• 6+ years of system/software development experience in data plane or networking systems
• Strong expertise in Go, Rust, C, or C++, with a focus on concurrency and performance
• Proven experience building high-throughput, low-latency systems
• Deep understanding of Linux networking stack (sockets, epoll, TCP/IP internals)
• Hands-on experience with packet processing frameworks or techniques (e.g., DPDK, eBPF, XDP, Netfilter, or similar)
• Strong knowledge of network protocols (TCP/IP, UDP, DNS, HTTP/HTTPS, TLS)
• Experience designing and operating distributed data plane architectures
• Familiarity with load balancing, traffic steering, NAT, proxying, and tunneling (IPSec, TLS, QUIC)
• Understanding of security enforcement in the data path (firewalling, ZTNA enforcement, DPI, policy engines)
• Ability to design for scale, resilience, and fault tolerance in traffic-heavy systems
• Strong debugging and performance-tuning skills in production environments
• Ability to lead initiatives, mentor engineers, and raise engineering excellence
• Strong use of AI tools with sound engineering judgment.

 

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