Senior Software Engineer II, Network Datapath

DigitalOcean is a cloud infrastructure company building simple, scalable cloud and AI solutions for builders. The Senior Software Engineer II, Network Datapath will develop, optimize, and operate high-performance networking software involving packet processing, routing, observability, and hardware-accelerated datapaths. The role collaborates across infrastructure and hardware teams to improve throughput, latency, scalability, and reliability.

Responsibilities:

• Design, develop, and optimize high-performance network datapath software for DigitalOcean's cloud infrastructure
• Build and improve packet-processing and forwarding systems with a focus on throughput, latency, CPU efficiency, scalability, and reliability
• Develop networking functionality across the host, kernel, user space, and hardware-accelerated datapath
• Work with technologies such as Linux networking, eBPF, XDP, DPDK, AF_XDP, SR-IOV, and programmable datapaths
• Analyze packet-processing paths and identify opportunities to eliminate bottlenecks and improve performance
• Develop software for routing, packet filtering, encapsulation, tunneling, load balancing, traffic steering, and network virtualization
• Build and improve datapath observability, telemetry, debugging, and performance monitoring
• Design software that integrates with DPUs, SmartNICs, programmable NICs, and other hardware acceleration technologies
• Develop automated testing and benchmarking frameworks to validate datapath correctness and performance
• Investigate complex production networking issues, including packet drops, latency, throughput degradation, CPU utilization, and unexpected traffic behavior
• Work with Network Infrastructure and Compute engineers to integrate datapath functionality into DigitalOcean's broader infrastructure architecture
• Contribute to the design and implementation of next-generation network architectures
• Author RFCs, architecture documents, technical proposals, design documents, and implementation plans to drive complex networking initiatives
• Clearly document technical decisions, tradeoffs, performance characteristics, dependencies, and operational considerations
• Participate in design reviews and provide technical guidance to other engineers
• Mentor engineers and contribute to improving software engineering and networking practices across the organization
• Own significant technical components and deliver them from design through production
• Solve complex performance and reliability problems in the network datapath
• Make sound technical decisions based on measurable performance and operational requirements
• Develop scalable solutions rather than one-off fixes
• Proactively identify architectural and performance bottlenecks
• Work effectively across Network Infrastructure, Compute, Security, and other engineering organizations
• Produce clear RFCs and technical documentation that enable teams to align on complex architectural decisions
• Mentor other engineers and raise the technical bar within the team
• Use AI and modern engineering tools to increase personal and team leverage and accelerate delivery

Requirements:

• Strong experience designing and developing production software in C, C++, or Go
• Strong understanding of networking and packet processing
• Experience developing software for Linux-based networking systems
• Solid understanding of networking concepts including TCP/IP, routing, switching, VLANs, VXLAN, BGP, ECMP, NAT, load balancing, and network virtualization
• Experience debugging and optimizing performance-sensitive systems
• Understanding of Linux networking internals, including the Linux kernel networking stack, network namespaces, sockets, queues, interrupts, and NIC drivers
• Experience with one or more high-performance networking technologies such as DPDK, XDP, eBPF, AF_XDP, or SR-IOV
• Experience with multithreaded and concurrent software
• Strong understanding of performance analysis, profiling, benchmarking, and troubleshooting
• Ability to reason about complex systems across hardware, operating systems, networking, and applications
• Ability to independently drive projects from technical design through implementation and production deployment
• Strong technical writing skills, with the ability to produce RFCs, architecture/design documents, technical proposals, and other documentation required to drive engineering projects
• Strong communication skills and ability to work effectively across engineering teams
• Experience developing software for DPUs, SmartNICs, IPUs, or programmable NICs
• Understanding how functionality can be distributed between host CPUs, NICs, DPUs, and switches
• Experience with DPU-based networking, security, storage, virtualization, or packet processing
• Experience with programmable datapaths such as P4, eBPF, or other programmable data-plane technologies
• Understanding of PCIe, DMA, queues, interrupts, RSS, offloads, and NIC hardware architecture
• Experience with hardware-accelerated networking is highly valuable. This includes:
• Experience working on cloud networking or hyperscale infrastructure
• Experience developing Linux kernel networking code or NIC drivers
• Experience with DPDK, XDP, eBPF, AF_XDP, or DPU-based datapaths in production
• Experience with 400G+ networking
• Experience with high-performance packet processing at 10/25/40/100/200/400G+ speeds
• Experience with network virtualization and overlay technologies such as VXLAN/EVPN
• Experience with programmable switches
• Experience with performance analysis using tools such as perf, eBPF tooling, flame graphs, or hardware performance counters
• Experience building network datapath tests and benchmarking infrastructure
• Contributions to Linux, DPDK, eBPF, OVS, or other networking/open-source projects