Principal Software Engineer​/Network Drivers

At F5, we strive to bring a better digital world to life. Our teams empower organizations across the globe to create, secure, and run applications that enhance how we experience our evolving digital world. We are passionate about cybersecurity, from protecting consumers from fraud to enabling companies to focus on innovation.

Everything we do centers around people. That means we obsess over how to make the lives of our customers, and their customers, better. And it means we prioritize a diverse F5 community where each individual can thrive.

F5 sits between the Internet and some of the largest companies on Earth. We keep their applications running fast, safe, and efficiently. Our hardware and software products are highly configurable and blazingly fast. The Drivers’ team at F5 is looking for a Principal Software Engineer who is well versed with designing, developing, and testing network drivers for a scalable, distributed, and carrier grade software solution.

This team owns the low-level network drivers for high performance packet processing in the BIG-IP’s data-plane. BIG-IP is F5’s flagship Application Delivery Controller. The data-plane pod either runs inside a virtual machine or directly in a customer’s native Kubernetes deployment. The network drivers developed by this team are used for a variety of paravirtualized interfaces, SR-IOV virtual functions, and F5’s FPGAs.

• Serve as the technical expert for network driver design and architecture.
• Drive analysis of requirements.
• Assist manager and architect with project estimates.
• Liaise with cross-functional teams to ensure that project is delivered in its entirety.
• Act as a mentor for junior members of the team.
• Design and implement network drivers and test automation for them.
• Research, investigate, and define new areas of technology to enhance existing products or identify new product directions.
• Conduct presentations internally and externally.
• Participate in hiring and onboarding process.
• Uphold F5’s Business Code of Ethics.

The Job Description is intended to be a general representation of the responsibilities and requirements of the job. However, the description may not be all-inclusive. Responsibilities and requirements are subject to change.

• Must have a strong C development background.
• Must have experience and knowledge of networking protocols, architecture, and technologies.
• Experience with Linux user space and kernel space driver development.
• 8+ years’ programming experience.
• Excellent analytical and debugging skills.
• Ability to manage ambiguity in work.
• Ability to present ideas verbally and in‑writing with clarity and precision.
• A minimum of 8+ years of related work experience with a Bachelor’s degree; or 6-8 years work experience and a Master’s degree; or a PhD with 5 years’ work experience.

• Experience with DPDK’s network PMDs.
• Exposure to containerization solutions (like Kubernetes) and Microservices Architecture.
• Well‑versed in Git Lab and/or similar repository solution.

The annual base pay for this position is: $ - $

F5 maintains broad salary ranges for its roles in order to account for variations in knowledge, skills, experience, geographic locations, and market conditions, as well as to reflect F5’s differing products, industries, and lines of business. The pay range referenced is as of the time of the job posting and is subject to change.