Senior Software Engineer - Site Defense

Senior Software Engineer - Site Defense

Join Reddit as a Senior Software Engineer on the Site Defense team. In this role, you will help protect Reddit from various online threats. You'll work on critical systems that ensure Reddit remains safe and reliable for its users.

About the Role

The Site Defense team is part of Reddit’s Infrastructure organization. We focus on defending Reddit against DDoS attacks, automated abuse, and other network-level threats. This position combines elements of distributed systems, networking, security, and applied machine learning.

What You'll Do

• Design, build, and operate high-scale, low-latency systems to protect Reddit from DDoS attacks, bots, and automated abuse.
• Analyze and develop ingress-level defenses across CDN, edge, and internal infrastructure layers.
• Create systems to detect, score, and mitigate malicious traffic in real time.
• Collaborate closely with Infrastructure, Security, and internal Safety teams to balance security, performance, and user experience.
• Mentor junior engineers in their professional growth.
• Contribute to machine learning initiatives, including experimenting with models for traffic classification and anomaly detection.
• Own services end-to-end, including design, implementation, on-call duties, and operational excellence.
• Participate in incident response and post-incident analysis for large-scale network or abuse events.

What We're Looking For

• 5+ years of experience building and operating high throughput and low latency production distributed systems.
• Software development experience in one or more programming languages, such as Python, Go, Rust, Java, or C++.
• Strong communication skills to work effectively with a service-oriented team.
• Experience with DDoS mitigation, WAFs, bot management, or abuse prevention systems.
• Knowledge of networking fundamentals (HTTP, TLS, TCP/IP, proxies, CDNs, load balancing).

Nice to Have

• Experience with cloud infrastructure systems (Kubernetes, AWS / GCE ecosystems).
• Familiarity with machine learning systems in production, especially real-time inference or feature pipelines.
• Understanding of traffic analysis, anomaly detection, or large-scale telemetry systems.

What We Offer

• Comprehensive Healthcare Benefits and Income Replacement Programs.
• 401k with Employer Match.
• Global benefit programs that fit your lifestyle, including workspace, professional development, and caregiving support.
• Family Planning Support.
• Gender-Affirming Care.
• Mental Health & Coaching Benefits.
• Flexible Vacation & Paid Volunteer Time Off.
• Generous Paid Parental Leave.

Pay Transparency

The base salary range for this position is:

$190,800 — $267,100 USD

This job may include equity in the form of restricted stock units and may also be eligible for commission. Reddit provides a wide range of benefits to U.S.-based employees. To learn more, please visit https://www.redditinc.com/careers/.

We are committed to transparency in our hiring process. Final offer amounts depend on various factors, including skills and experience.

Reddit is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to building a diverse workforce and providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities. If you need assistance during the interview process, please let your recruiter know.