Senior Distributed Systems Engineer – Big Data Infrastructure & Platform Development (Remote, $30/Hour)

Join arenaflex: Help Build the Backbone of Global Entertainment Through Data

At arenaflex, we believe in the transformative power of entertainment. We are the company that has forever changed how the world watches, shares, and experiences stories — streaming premium content to more than 220 million paid members across 190 countries in over 30 languages. But our ambition does not stop there. As we push into bold new frontiers like interactive gaming and live experiences, our need for innovative, scalable, and resilient data infrastructure has never been greater. arenaflex is not just a streaming service; we are a technology powerhouse where every click, every recommendation, every playback is powered by sophisticated data systems operating at unmatched scale.

Our Data Infrastructure organization is the engine that fuels every business decision at arenaflex. From the algorithms that suggest your next favorite series to the analytics that guide original content investments worth billions of dollars, our platform teams make it possible for the entire company to work with data efficiently, responsibly, and securely. We are the ones doing the heavy lifting so that every product team, every analyst, every engineer across arenaflex can extract value from data without friction. We are now looking for exceptional distributed systems engineers to help us advance, evolve, and future-proof the infrastructure that supports our audacious goal of reaching 500 million members worldwide. And yes — this opportunity is fully remote within the United States, because at arenaflex, we value what you can do, not where you sit.

About the Role: Distributed Systems Engineer – Big Data Infrastructure

As a Senior Distributed Systems Engineer on one of our data infrastructure teams at arenaflex, you will be at the heart of designing, building, and operating the distributed systems that process petabytes of data every single day. You will work on business-critical systems that touch virtually every function at arenaflex, collaborating with world-class engineers, product managers, and technical program managers across the organization. This is not a role for someone looking to maintain the status quo — we are looking for builders, problem-solvers, and curious minds who thrive on tackling some of the most challenging distributed computing problems in the industry today.

Key Responsibilities: What You Will Own and Drive at arenaflex

• Architect and Build World-Class Infrastructure: Design, develop, and maintain highly available, fault-tolerant, and scalable distributed systems that power arenaflex’s data platform and analytics ecosystem.
• Solve Real-World Problems at Massive Scale: Apply your programming expertise and analytical problem-solving skills to address real business needs, from low-latency querying to petabyte-scale ETL processing.
• Build RESTful Web Services: Develop robust, well-documented, and reliable web services that expose data abstractions to hundreds of microservices across arenaflex.
• Lead Cross-Functional Initiatives: Collaborate with engineers, product managers, and TPMs across multiple teams to drive large-scale projects from conception through delivery.
• Optimize for Performance and Reliability: Identify bottlenecks, design performance improvements, and ensure that the systems you build deliver sub-millisecond latencies where required.
• Contribute to Open Source Communities: Share arenaflex’s innovations with the broader engineering community by contributing to open source projects, and bring back best practices from the ecosystem.
• Champion Engineering Excellence: Participate in code reviews, mentor junior engineers, and foster a culture of feedback, ownership, and continuous improvement within your team.
• Embrace Multi-Threading and Concurrency Challenges: Tackle complex threading and concurrency problems with confidence, designing systems that perform reliably under high contention.
• Support Event-Driven and Intelligent Orchestration: Help evolve our big data scheduling and orchestration platforms toward event-driven models that require minimal user intervention.

Focus Areas Within the Data Infrastructure Organization at arenaflex

Database Access Platform

The Database Access Platform team builds and operates a flexible query gateway that facilitates data abstractions operating at sub-millisecond latencies. This team enables arenaflex microservices to store, consume, and manage their data more effectively, holding significant responsibility for meeting the ever-growing and evolving data needs of the broader organization. If you are passionate about distributed data systems and thrive in a culture of engineering feedback and ownership, this is the team for you.

Data Platform Infrastructure

The Data Platform Infrastructure team functions as a platform for our internal data platforms, providing shared infrastructure and tooling that empowers arenaflex to rapidly innovate on cutting-edge data and analytics systems. Rather than building tailor-made platforms for each new system, this team creates high-impact system, control, and deployment infrastructure optimized for running data systems at scale. Many of our tools and systems are written in Python, making this an excellent team for engineers who enjoy working across multiple languages.

Data Movement and Processing

This team offers a self-service abstraction layer that enables diverse user personas across arenaflex to meet their low-latency data movement and processing needs. The team abstracts complexity around powerful real-time frameworks like Kafka and Flink, offers a graph-driven processing experience, and invests heavily in operational automation, reliability, and tooling for predictable data quality.

Big Data Compute

The Big Data Compute team is responsible for providing the cloud-native platform for distributed data processing at arenaflex. This team is central to batch data processing within the Data Platform, offering support for Spark to ETL data into the petabytes-scale data warehouse, with access via Spark and Presto/Trino. It also provides sub-second latency for a specific class of queries using Druid. We are looking for exceptional talent with experience in Spark, Presto/Trino, Druid, Iceberg, and distributed database systems in general. You will tackle fascinating and challenging problems of working with data at scale, build features and performance optimizations, and work closely with open source communities to shape the projects you depend on.

Big Data Orchestration

This team provides the platform for scheduling, orchestrating, and executing big data jobs and workflows in a self-serve manner. These platforms include foundational services that run all ETL and ML workloads on arenaflex’s Big Data Systems. These fully distributed systems are continually evolving for arenaflex scale with state-of-the-art technology. We are moving toward event-driven and intelligent orchestration that requires minimal user input, and you can help lead the way.

What We Are Looking For: Essential Qualifications

• 2+ Years of Experience: You have at least two years of experience building large-scale distributed systems, features, or applications in production environments.
• RESTful Web Services Expertise: You are proficient in the design and development of RESTful web services that are robust, scalable, and well-documented.
• Distributed Systems Mastery: You have hands-on experience building and operating scalable, fault-tolerant, distributed systems at significant scale.
• Strong Programming Background: You are highly skilled in Java or another object-oriented programming language, with a deep understanding of software engineering best practices.
• Comfort with Multi-Threading: You are confident tackling multi-threading challenges and designing concurrent systems that perform reliably under load.
• Educational Foundation: You hold a BS in Computer Science or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.

Preferred Qualifications and Skills That Will Set You Apart

• Deep familiarity with big data technologies such as Spark, Presto/Trino, Druid, Iceberg, Kafka, and Flink.
• Experience contributing to or maintaining open source projects, with a passion for community collaboration.
• Strong understanding of cloud-native architectures and distributed databases.
• Proven ability to lead cross-functional initiatives and influence technical direction across multiple teams.
• Excellent communication skills and a track record of giving and receiving constructive engineering feedback.
• Experience with Python and polyglot programming environments is a strong plus.

Why You Will Love Working at arenaflex

At arenaflex, we believe that great work begins with great people and an environment that empowers them. Our culture is built on freedom and responsibility — we hire exceptional people and trust them to do their best work, however and wherever they do it best. We are committed to building a diverse and inclusive team that brings fresh perspectives to every challenge, knowing that innovation thrives when different voices are heard and valued.

As a remote employee at arenaflex, you will have the flexibility to work from anywhere in the U.S. while collaborating with some of the brightest minds in the industry. You will be compensated at a competitive rate of $30 per hour, with opportunities for growth, learning, and career advancement. We invest heavily in our people through mentorship programs, conference attendance, internal tech talks, and dedicated time for learning and experimentation. You will have direct access to leadership, the chance to shape systems used by hundreds of millions of people, and the opportunity to contribute your work back to the open source community.

Compensation, Perks, and Benefits

• Competitive Pay: $30 per hour, with regular performance reviews and opportunities for raises.
• Remote-First Culture: Work from anywhere in the U.S. with flexible hours that fit your life.
• Health and Wellness: Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage for you and your dependents.
• Retirement Planning: Generous 401(k) matching to help you build long-term financial security.
• Paid Time Off: Generous vacation, sick leave, and holiday policies so you can recharge and stay at your best.
• Learning Stipend: Annual budget for conferences, courses, books, and certifications to support your professional growth.
• Parental Leave: Industry-leading paid parental leave for new parents.
• Cutting-Edge Tech: Access to the tools, hardware, and resources you need to do your best work.

Your Next Chapter Starts Here at arenaflex

If you are passionate about distributed systems, energized by the challenge of operating at petabyte scale, and excited by the opportunity to help shape the future of global entertainment, we want to hear from you. This is more than a job — it is a chance to do the most impactful work of your career, alongside a team that is redefining what is possible in streaming, gaming, and beyond. Bring your curiosity, your ambition, and your craft to arenaflex, and help us build the infrastructure that will delight the next 500 million members around the world. Apply today, and let’s build the future of entertainment together.