Software Engineer, Systems
Software Engineering
Sydney, NSW, Australia
Posted on May 22, 2026
Meta is seeking a Staff Systems Software Engineer to design and build the foundational software infrastructure that powers Meta's products at massive scale. In this role, you will architect and implement complex systems software — spanning areas such as operating systems interfaces, runtime environments, low-level networking, storage, or platform services — that enables reliability, performance, and scalability across Meta's infrastructure. You will serve as a technical leader who drives engineering excellence, shapes the systems architecture roadmap, and partners across engineering disciplines to deliver high-impact solutions.
Software Engineer, Systems Responsibilities:
Meta builds technologies that help people connect, find communities, and grow businesses. When Facebook launched in 2004, it changed the way people connect. Apps like Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp further empowered billions around the world. Now, Meta is moving beyond 2D screens toward immersive experiences like augmented and virtual reality to help build the next evolution in social technology. People who choose to build their careers by building with us at Meta help shape a future that will take us beyond what digital connection makes possible today—beyond the constraints of screens, the limits of distance, and even the rules of physics.
Individual compensation is determined by skills, qualifications, experience, and location. Compensation details listed in this posting reflect the base hourly rate, monthly rate, or annual salary only, and do not include bonus, equity or sales incentives, if applicable. In addition to base compensation, Meta offers benefits. Learn more about benefits at Meta.
Software Engineer, Systems Responsibilities:
- Architect and implement large-scale systems software components, including low-level platform services, runtime environments, or infrastructure frameworks that underpin Meta's product ecosystem
- Lead the technical design of systems initiatives, evaluating trade-offs across performance, reliability, scalability, and maintainability to drive sound engineering decisions
- Identify and resolve complex systems-level performance bottlenecks using profiling, instrumentation, and advanced debugging techniques including static analysis and trace-based diagnostics
- Define and enforce service level objectives, build observability infrastructure including dashboards and alerting, and drive mean-time-to-mitigation improvements during production incidents
- Establish and evolve coding standards, testing strategies, and rollout practices for systems software across the team, including automated resiliency and overload testing
- Leverage AI-assisted development workflows to accelerate systems design, code generation, and cross-disciplinary analysis, applying sound judgment on when deep systems expertise is required
- Collaborate with cross-functional partners across infrastructure, product engineering, and hardware teams to align systems architecture with broader platform requirements
- Drive execution of multi-team systems initiatives by coordinating dependencies, managing phased rollouts and migrations, and proactively surfacing and mitigating technical risks
- Mentor other engineers on systems design principles, debugging methodologies, and AI-augmented development practices, and contribute to onboarding and engineering programs
- Communicate technical decisions, architectural trade-offs, and systems health metrics clearly in writing and presentations to both engineering and non-engineering stakeholders
- 8+ years of experience in systems software engineering, including work on operating systems, runtime environments, low-level networking, storage systems, or large-scale platform infrastructure
- Experience leading the end-to-end technical design and delivery of major systems software initiatives, including architecture definition, cross-team coordination, and production rollout
- Experience diagnosing and resolving complex systems-level issues such as memory management bugs, concurrency and synchronization errors, or latency regressions using advanced debugging and profiling tools
- Experience building reliable, observable systems software with well-defined SLOs, automated testing, staged rollout strategies, and production monitoring
- Experience communicating systems architecture decisions and engineering trade-offs in writing to technical and non-technical audiences
- Experience owning systems software that spans multiple infrastructure layers, with demonstrated ability to reason about upstream and downstream component dependencies
- Experience integrating AI-assisted tooling into systems development workflows, including code generation, anomaly detection, or automated root cause analysis
- Experience with systems programming in C, C++, or Rust, including kernel interfaces, memory allocators, threading models, or inter-process communication mechanisms
- Experience adhering to and implementing responsible, ethical AI practices (e.g., risk assessment, bias mitigation, quality and accuracy reviews)
- Demonstrated ability to integrate AI tools to optimize/redesign workflows and drive measurable impact (e.g., efficiency gains, quality improvements)
- Track record of driving performance optimization initiatives at the systems layer, including CPU, memory, I/O, or network throughput improvements measured against defined baselines
- Demonstrated ongoing AI skill development (e.g., prompt/context engineering, agent orchestration) and staying current with emerging AI technologies
Meta builds technologies that help people connect, find communities, and grow businesses. When Facebook launched in 2004, it changed the way people connect. Apps like Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp further empowered billions around the world. Now, Meta is moving beyond 2D screens toward immersive experiences like augmented and virtual reality to help build the next evolution in social technology. People who choose to build their careers by building with us at Meta help shape a future that will take us beyond what digital connection makes possible today—beyond the constraints of screens, the limits of distance, and even the rules of physics.
Individual compensation is determined by skills, qualifications, experience, and location. Compensation details listed in this posting reflect the base hourly rate, monthly rate, or annual salary only, and do not include bonus, equity or sales incentives, if applicable. In addition to base compensation, Meta offers benefits. Learn more about benefits at Meta.
