Quizlet · 2 weeks ago
Principal Engineer - Platform Architecture & Core Reliability
San Francisco, CA
Full-time
Onsite
Lead/Staff
$237K/yr - $323K/yr
10+ years expQuizlet is a leading learning platform dedicated to helping learners achieve their outcomes. The Principal Engineer will lead critical architectural decisions to establish industry-leading standards for reliability and operational excellence, focusing on optimizing performance and driving systemic architectural change.
E-LearningEdTechEducationInternetKnowledge Management
Responsibilities
Lead the strategy and implementation necessary to achieve and maintain our 99.95% availability target
Define the architectural approach for scaling our core data systems, optimizing performance across Cloud Spanner, PlanetScale MySQL, and BigQuery
Drive performance and efficiency improvements across our managed compute environment, specifically optimizing Kubernetes (GKE) clusters and managing the performance and operational complexity of Istio
Architect high-leverage internal platforms, designing the pipelines across tools like GitHub Actions, CircleCI, and ArgoCD, and driving organizational influence to standardize high-velocity, safe deployment practices
Drive reliability change across the engineering organization by leveraging deep-dive analysis of incidents (Jeli) and proactive monitoring (Datadog), improving operational practices, and influencing architectural design decisions
Act as a technical owner for the cost-per-request metric, identifying and implementing architectural efficiencies (caching, connection pooling, resource utilization) that scale down infrastructure spend while maintaining service speed
Qualification
Required
Deep technical mastery and hands-on experience across three or more of the following high-leverage domains with 10+ years of experience in software development, site reliability engineering, or platform engineering
A proven track record of driving significant architectural outcomes as a Principal or Staff Engineer in a high-scale platform or infrastructure role
Global Scale & Resilience: A history of scaling consumer-facing systems that reliably handle tens of thousands of requests per second (RPS) and successfully achieving high-availability targets across multi-region cloud environments
Data Systems: Deep expertise in architecting and optimizing complex data backbones involving transactional, globally consistent (e.g., Cloud Spanner / PlanetScale), and analytical systems (BigQuery)
Container Orchestration & Networking: Strong operational knowledge of Kubernetes (GKE) orchestration layered with a Service Mesh (Istio), including traffic shaping, security, and performance tuning
Developer Velocity Tooling: Proven ability to design and implement automated CI/CD pipelines leveraging tools like GitHub Actions, CircleCI, and ArgoCD, with a track record of successfully deploying AI developer tools and workflows
Observability & Incident Management: Mastery in implementing comprehensive monitoring using Datadog for defining SLOs and performing deep-dive investigations, and a strong background in leading structured incident response using tools like Jeli
Cloud Architecture: Extensive experience in designing and optimizing large-scale cloud-native architecture on GCP (or equivalent cloud providers), including network optimization (e.g., Cloudflare integration) and infrastructure cost management
Benefits
20 vacation days that we expect you to take!
Competitive health, dental, and vision insurance (100% employee and 75% dependent PPO, Dental, VSP Choice)
Employer-sponsored 401k plan with company match
Access to LinkedIn Learning and other resources to support professional growth
Paid Family Leave, FSA, HSA, Commuter benefits, and Wellness benefits
40 hours of annual paid time off to participate in volunteer programs of choice
Company
Quizlet
Quizlet is a learning platform that uses activities and games to help students practice and master what they’re learning.
201-500 employees
H1B Sponsorship
Quizlet has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships. Please note that this does not
guarantee sponsorship for this specific role. Below presents additional info for your
reference. (Data Powered by US Department of Labor)
Distribution of Different Job Fields Receiving Sponsorship
Represents job field similar to this job
Trends of Total Sponsorships
2025 (12)
2024 (10)
2023 (7)
2022 (9)
2021 (1)
2020 (8)
Funding
Current Stage
Growth StageTotal Funding
$62MKey Investors
General AtlanticIcon Ventures
2020-05-13Series C· $30M
2018-02-06Series B· $20M
2015-11-23Series A· $12M
Leadership Team
Kurt Beidler
Chief Executive Officer
David Margulius
Board Member and Co-Founder
Recent News
2025-10-31
South Africa Today
2025-09-12
Mark Cuban Foundation
2025-09-09
Company data provided by crunchbase