Job Description
About ngrok Inc.
ngrok is an all-in-one cloud networking platform that secures, transforms, and routes traffic to services running anywhere. Instead of cobbling together nginx, NLBs, VPNs, model routers, and oodles of other tools, developers solve every networking problem with one gateway. Doesn’t matter if they’re sharing localhost or running AI workloads in production.
We’re trusted by more than 9 million developers at companies like GitHub, Okta, HashiCorp, and Twilio. What started as a way to put your local app on a public URL has grown into a universal gateway for API delivery, AI inference, device fleets, and site-to-site connectivity. It’s the same ngrok that millions of developers have loved and leaned on every day for years, now with the power to run production traffic at scale.
A few things you should know:
- Our mascot is a rock
- We are obsessed with our pets, Viper sunglasses and Bufo (yes, the toad)
- We have a designated Chief Emoji Officer - they are vital to our success!
- We like software that’s serious and culture that’s not
Most people skim to ‘requirements’ and bounce. You’re actually reading this. That’s the kind of thoroughness we respect, or you’re just procrastinating. Either way, same same and you should keep reading.
About the Gateway Team
We own ngrok’s core gateway layer — the infrastructure that sits between the internet and everything our customers run.
Every request, response, retry, and timeout passes through here.
Our job is to make sure that traffic is:
- Routed exactly where it’s supposed to go
- Secured correctly, every time
- Allowed or blocked for reasons we can explain
- Rate-limited and shaped without surprises
- Observable when something inevitably goes sideways
What You’ll Actually Do
- Build and operate the gateway core: You’ll work on the services every ngrok request passes through. They’re very fast, very hot, and have extremely high standards.
- Design routing and security primitives everyone depends on: You’ll build low-level policy, routing, and validation systems used across the platform—making sure bad configs fail fast and don’t accidentally DDoS the internet.
- Debug distributed systems in the wild: You’ll chase bugs caused by timing, load, and incorrect assumptions. Expect metrics, traces, packet captures, and the occasional “how is this even possible?”
- Ship infrastructure people sleep on (in a good way): You’ll build simple, durable systems and clean abstractions that other teams rely on daily—while thinking about blast radius, safety, and rollbacks more than flashy demos.
You Might Be a Great Fit If…
- You’re comfortable in Go, Rust, C/C++, or Java (bonus points for Go)
- You’ve built networking, proxy, or infrastructure systems in production
- You understand TLS/mTLS
- You enjoy systems that are invisible until they’re not
- You passionate about building primitives other teams depend on
- You’ve said “this needs to be rock solid” and meant it literally
Extra credit if you’ve worked on:
- Gateways, proxies, or edge platforms
- Security-critical infrastructure
- Multi-tenant networking systems
- Config-heavy systems that must never surprise users
- Anything described as “simple” in the original proposal
Tech Stack
ngrok runs entirely on AWS. Engineers develop by SSH’ing into remote EC2 environments that run a full Kubernetes cluster of the ngrok stack, closely mirroring production. The codebase is primarily Go and TypeScript. We use Postgres for persistence, Kafka for streaming, Protobuf for service boundaries, and Kubernetes, Terraform, Helm, and Buildkite to operate and ship reliably. React is used for user interfaces, and GitHub supports our development workflows and remembers everything.
Location
This is a remote position for candidates outside of the Bay Area and a hybrid role for candidates within commuting distance to San Francisco. Our Bay Area employees commute to the office on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
Sponsorship
All candidates must be US-based, and legally authorized to work in the United States.
At this time, ngrok is unable to provide visa sponsorship for this position. Applicants must be authorized to work in the United States on a permanent, ongoing basis without the need for current or future sponsorship.
Compensation
Senior Software Engineer
- Tier 1 (SF, LA, Seattle, NYC): $180,000 – $225,000
- Tier 2 (rest of US): $165,600 – $207,000
Software Engineer III
- Tier 1 (SF, LA, Seattle, NYC): $160,000 – $200,000
- Tier 2 (rest of US): $147,200 – $184,000
Software Engineer II
- Tier 1 (SF, LA, Seattle, NYC): $132,000 – $165,000
- Tier 2 (rest of US): $121,400 – $151,800
#LI-Remote
Full Time Employee Benefits
Compensation for this role depends on level, but we provide a competitive mix of salary and equity.
We provide a 401(k) with a 100% match up to 3% of your salary and a 50% match up to another 2%.
We provide healthcare, dental, and vision with premiums fully covered on the base plan for employees. Half of premiums are covered for dependents.
We offer unlimited PTO and a culture in which the overwhelming majority of employees take more than four weeks. Your manager is also on the hook for encouraging you to do the same.
