Senior Software Engineer – Low-Latency, Async & Systems Programming | Cloud Security

Tenable, Inc.•Columbia, MD

4h•$137,500 - $183,500•Hybrid

About The Position

Tenable is seeking a true systems programmer obsessed with performance, concurrency, and low-overhead design. This role is ideal for an engineer with a background in game engine development, high-frequency trading (HFT), database internals, or real-time simulation. The ideal candidate will apply these skills in a managed environment (like C# or Java) or come directly from a deep C/C++/Rust background. The mission is to write high-performance, asynchronous, low-latency code that handles massive, non-blocking throughput on a single machine. This involves digging into memory profiles, hunting down GC pressure, eliminating allocations, and designing highly concurrent event-driven architectures. The focus is on optimizing asynchronous pipelines or data structure memory layout rather than using external caching solutions.

Requirements

A proven track record working in performance-critical domains such as game engine development, high-frequency trading (HFT), database internals, or real-time simulation, specifically dealing with heavy data streams or real-time processing.
Practical, battle-tested experience with asynchronous, event-driven, or multi-threaded programming. Understanding of how non-blocking I/O works under the hood and how to avoid common concurrency pitfalls.
Deep understanding of memory and data fundamentals, including memory layout, cache-locality, and algorithmic trade-offs of choosing one data structure over another from first principles.
Proficiency in memory management strategies for large, fixed blocks of memory (e.g., bitmap allocators, free lists) and mitigating memory fragmentation.
A "Systems" Mindset: Fluent in bit manipulation and pointer/offset arithmetic. Capable of calculating the exact metadata and memory overhead of code blocks.
A story about using a memory or CPU profiler to hunt down a low-level bottleneck and solving it with a non-obvious, structural fix.
4+ years of professional experience, primarily leveraged in performance-first environments using C++, C, Rust, C#, or Java.

Nice To Haves

Deep C/C++/Rust instincts: A strong background in unmanaged systems programming.
Experience in secure environments (FedRAMP, IL5/IL6) or an active security clearance.

Responsibilities

Build and refine heavy asynchronous execution patterns, ensuring maximum thread efficiency and minimal latency overhead across massive workloads.
Design, develop, and maintain complex, scalable, and high-performance systems with a focus on non-blocking architectures and highly efficient, maintainable code.
Aggressively reduce memory allocations and GC pressure using profiling tools (like PerfView, dotTrace, YourKit) and advanced allocation techniques (e.g., object pooling, custom data structures, Span<T>/Memory<T>/ByteBuffer concepts).
Identify and troubleshoot production issues, conducting low-level root cause analysis and implementing fixes to ensure strict system reliability.
Analyze and articulate the architectural trade-offs of different design choices (e.g., bitmap vs. free-list allocators, array vs. list memory layout, speed vs. memory, synchronous blocking vs. asynchronous event loops).
Collaborate with other senior engineers to drive technical direction, fostering a culture of continuous improvement, async proficiency, and memory-aware development.