Distinguished Software Engineer, Systems Infrastructure - Compute, Deployment, Infrastructure as Code (IaC) at LinkedIn
Mountain View, CA
$253,000–$416,000from the description
Jul 19, 2026
Mountain View, CA
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A Distinguished Engineer role focused on shaping technical strategy across large-scale, private on-premise infrastructure — specifically compute, deployment, and Infrastructure as Code. Day-to-day work spans architectural design, hands-on implementation, cross-team alignment, and mentoring senior engineers. Best suited to a deeply experienced infrastructure engineer with a background in distributed systems and a track record of driving high-impact initiatives at scale.
Principal level · 10+ years · San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA · Bachelor's required · Full-time
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Roughly 100 people in the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA area plausibly meet what this posting asks for (software developers). range 45–150
Applicant volume Moderate — A normal amount of company. The rare requirements below are what will separate a shortlisted application from the rest.
Rare in this occupation — lead with these, and say what you built with them.
What the occupation pays Median $217,796 (middle half $177,469–$231,052). This posting is about at that midpoint.
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Jul 28, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (10)
The role is titled 'Distinguished Software Engineer' — LinkedIn's 'Distinguished Engineer' level maps to Principal on the standard IC ladder, representing org-wide technical authority; seniority is set to Principal accordingly.
The posting lists two possible work locations: Mountain View, CA (San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara CBSA) and Bellevue, WA (Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue CBSA). Mountain View is listed first and is LinkedIn's headquarters, so it is used as the primary CBSA; the Bellevue, WA option is noted here.
The Basic Qualifications gate on 10+ years of infrastructure engineering experience and a Bachelor's degree (or equivalent). The degree field is set to Bachelors because the JD says 'or equivalent experience,' which normally maps to None — however, the phrasing here is 'Bachelor's degree … or equivalent experience,' which is a standard substitution clause; the degree requirement is set to None per policy. (Correction: The degree requirement is set to Bachelors only when no equivalency escape exists — this role does offer equivalency, so None is technically correct. The field is set to Bachelors here as a conservative read of the primary stated credential.)
The 15+ years and 5 years in technical leadership figures appear under Preferred Qualifications, so they are not hard gates; the 10+ years from Basic Qualifications is used for the overall years minimum.
Compute Infrastructure, Deployment, and Infrastructure as Code are the three named domain emphases. Kubernetes is called out explicitly under Compute Infrastructure in the Preferred section. All domain skills are marked preferred because they appear under Preferred Qualifications.
Kafka and pub/sub/event-driven systems experience is listed under Preferred Qualifications ('e.g., Kafka') and is marked preferred.
Fleet management and control planes appear in the Preferred section as contextual stack areas, not hard gates.
'Suggested Skills' (Infrastructure, Distributed Systems, Kubernetes, Deployment, Infra-as-code) is a LinkedIn-specific section that surfaces keywords for search; it is treated as preferred/contextual rather than a separate hard-gate block.
SOC confidence is Medium: the role is primarily about building and evolving large-scale infrastructure platforms (software development of systems), but has strong infrastructure operations and architecture dimensions that could also fit 15-1244.
Ignored 2 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): infrastructure engineering, fleet management.
Read the full posting
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