Software Engineer, Network & Protocol Team (Washington, D.C.)

Job Description

Job DescriptionSoftware Engineer (Network & Protocol)

Location: Washington, D.C. (HQ2)
Team: Engineering • Full‑time • Pre‑seed

About Hoplynk

Hoplynk is building the communications and networking layer for the intelligent edge, ensuring resilient connectivity for autonomous systems and mission-critical operations in any environment. We’re a pre-seed startup spun out of Stanford University and based in San Francisco, developing an embedded software/firmware stack that delivers multipath, failure-aware networking across heterogeneous links so critical systems stay online when networks don’t.

The Role

You’ll be our first networking specialist and a member of the founding team. Your mission: design, ship, and measure a robust multipath networking protocol on Linux. You’ll write low level kernel and routing policies, aggregate telemetry and interface metrics, and design large scale system tests.

What You’ll Do and Own

• Design and implement the multipath routing/transport stack on Linux, including policy engines for path selection, subflow management, and failover.

• Define and maintain SLOs for latency, loss, failover time, and goodput.

• Build and optimize telemetry systems on resource constrained devices: per-subflow RTT/RTTVAR, cwnd, loss/reordering, packet sampling, and device-health signals; keep schemas stable as the system grows.

• Design and run experiments with simulated networks in QEMU.

• Partner with embedded/firmware on BSP, drivers, OTA updates, and device observability.

• Support deployments and onboarding: capture traces, triage issues, and harden release processes as we scale customers.

What You’ll Bring

• Solid Linux networking experience at L3/L4 with iproute2 / netlink / tc.

• Familiarity with low level programming languages like C/C++ and Rust

• A track record of improving latency, reliability, or throughput via shaping, queue management, or congestion control.

• Comfort with transport and routing protocols such as TCP, UDP, QUIC, MPTCP, MPLS, other routing protocols.

• Experience building network telemetry (RTT, loss, cwnd, packet sampling) with stable data models.

• Ability to design experiments, simulate real conditions, and measure results.

• Clear writing and documentation; ability to mentor and set engineering standards.

Nice to Have

• Routing & Fast-Path: FRR, Babel, OLSR, batman-adv; frameworks like DPDK; Segment Routing (SR-MPLS/SRv6).

• Wireless & Cellular Networking: CGNAT, captive portals

• Embedded & Security: OpenWrt, Yocto, Buildroot; OTA frameworks (RAUC/Mender), A/B partitioning, secure boot/firmware signing.

• Timing & Observability: NTP, PTP, perf, ftrace, pcap, mptcpd, gNMI/streaming telemetry.

• Hardware & Applied Domains: Schematics interpretation, PHY bring-up testing; robotics/autonomy networks in challenging RF environments.

Tools & Tech You’ll Touch

Linux 6.x · MPTCP · OpenWrt/Debian/Ubuntu · iproute2/netlink · mptcpd · perf/ftrace · Rust / C++ / Python (routing and full-stack development)

How We Work - Hoplynk’s Values

We believe that shared values are the foundation for success. At Hoplynk, we value:

• Candor: Say the hard thing kindly, early, and with evidence. Speak up during decisions.

• Humility: Strong opinions, loosely held. Change your mind with facts. Teach and learn in the open; celebrate team wins over heroics.

• Initiative: Run toward the smoke. Own problems end-to-end. Ship in small, safe steps with clear, observable outcomes.