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.
About the role
As a Principal Software Development Engineer within the F5 AI Security team, you will play a pivotal role in developing low-latency, high-performance applications within our B2B SaaS multi-tenant architecture and our self-hosted platform. This role is crucial for enhancing our capabilities in areas such as forward and reverse proxy development, dynamic policy enforcement, and traffic interception and modification.
What you'll do
Development and Architecture: Lead the design and implementation of robust low-latency services and APIs, focusing on scalable multi-tenant architectures.
Performance Optimization: Build and refine forward and reverse proxies to ensure optimal performance and security for our clients.
Instrumentation and Monitoring: Implement observability tools to provide insightful monitoring and alerting across our services, aiding in proactive performance management.
AI-Enhanced Development: Leverage AI development tools and agentic frameworks to accelerate coding, testing, and problem-solving while maintaining code quality and security standards.
Leadership and Collaboration: Guide and mentor junior developers, taking initiative in architectural decisions while remaining open to team inputs and fostering an inclusive and collaborative environment.
Innovation and Analysis: Engage in the continuous evaluation of emerging technologies and methodologies that could enhance our system architectures or development practices.
Qualifications
Experience: Proven track record as a Go developer with experience in developing low-latency applications and working with multi-tenant B2B SaaS architectures. Experience in developing both forward and reverse proxies is highly desirable.
Technical Skills: Expertise in Go programming with proficiency in Python and/or TypeScript, understanding of network protocols and concepts, and experience with tools for monitoring and observability.
AI Development Skills: Hands-on experience with AI development tools and integrating AI assistance into daily development workflows. Experience with agentic frameworks and context engineering for optimizing AI-assisted development is highly desirable.
Additional Skills: Experience with public API design and engineering is beneficial. Familiarity with Large Language Models (LLMs) as a product domain—including embeddings, RAG architectures, and prompt engineering techniques is a plus.
Leadership Skills: Ability to lead projects with minimal guidance, excellent problem-solving skills, and the capacity to take and integrate feedback constructively.
Analytical Mindset: Strong interest in analyzing and deciphering complex systems, with a keen eye for improving system efficiency and performance.
Communication Skills: Excellent verbal and written communication abilities, capable of conveying complex technical ideas clearly and effectively.
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, and responsibilities and requirements are subject to change.
The annual base pay for this position is: $225,600.00 - $338,400.00F5 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.
You may also be offered incentive compensation, bonus, restricted stock units, and benefits. More details about F5’s benefits can be found at the following link: https://www.f5.com/company/careers/benefits. F5 reserves the right to change or terminate any benefit plan without notice.
Please note that F5 only contacts candidates through F5 email address (ending with @f5.com) or auto email notification from Workday (ending with f5.com or @myworkday.com).
Equal Employment Opportunity
It is the policy of F5 to provide equal employment opportunities to all employees and employment applicants without regard to unlawful considerations of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, sensory, physical, or mental disability, marital status, veteran or military status, genetic information, or any other classification protected by applicable local, state, or federal laws. This policy applies to all aspects of employment, including, but not limited to, hiring, job assignment, compensation, promotion, benefits, training, discipline, and termination. F5 offers a variety of reasonable accommodations for candidates. Requesting an accommodation is completely voluntary. F5 will assess the need for accommodations in the application process separately from those that may be needed to perform the job. Request by contacting [email protected].
Skills Required
- Proven experience developing in Go
- Experience developing low-latency applications
- Experience with multi-tenant B2B SaaS architectures
- Expertise in Go programming
- Proficiency in Python and/or TypeScript
- Understanding of network protocols and concepts
- Experience with monitoring and observability tools
- Hands-on experience with AI development tools
- Ability to integrate AI assistance into daily development workflows
- Ability to lead projects with minimal guidance
- Strong problem-solving skills
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills
- Experience developing forward and reverse proxies
- Experience with agentic frameworks and context engineering
- Experience with public API design and engineering
- Familiarity with LLMs, embeddings, RAG architectures, and prompt engineering
F5 Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about F5 and has not been reviewed or approved by F5.
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Equity Value & Accessibility — Equity grants and an employee stock purchase plan are positioned as meaningful parts of total compensation, with RSUs and a discount ESPP commonly included. Pay packages for many technical roles are considered competitive when equity is taken into account.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Paid vacation that increases with tenure, sick time, paid holidays, and paid family leave are prominently featured. Additional programs like volunteer time and periodic wellness long weekends are highlighted as part of the time-off ecosystem.
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Inclusive Benefits Coverage — Health plans include travel support for specific care (such as reproductive and gender‑affirming services) and mental health resources, alongside comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage. These elements are presented as part of a broad, inclusive approach to healthcare.
F5 Insights
What We Do
F5 application services ensure that applications are always secure and perform the way they should—in any environment and on any device. F5 (NASDAQ: FFIV) powers applications from development through their entire life cycle, across any multi-cloud environment, so our customers – enterprise businesses, service providers, governments, and consumer brands—can deliver differentiated, high-performing, and secure digital experiences.
