Senior Staff Software Engineer, Unified Proxy

Who We Are   Temporal is an open source programming model that can simplify code, make applications more reliable, and help developers focus on the important things like delivering features faster. Our amazing user community provides us with real-time feedback and contributions to improve the developer experience everywhere.   Backed by top VC firms, we have built a team of professionals from various successful start-ups and well-known technology companies. Together, we collaborate cross-functionally, engage with and support our users to improve the developer experience, deliver world-class open-source software, and enhance our commercial SaaS platform.   Temporal is growing and working towards building the best community. We are looking for those who share our values, challenge 'standard' thinking, and want to influence our future. If you have a passion for helping developer communities, open-source software, and want to be a part of our amazing team, we'd love to hear from you!

Summary

We are seeking a Senior Staff Engineer in Temporal's Cloud Global Services team to lead the technical strategy and execution of the Unified Temporal Proxy initiative. This individual will be responsible for consolidating disparate proxy implementations into a single, extensible, open-source, and productized solution. The unified proxy is not only a critical enabler for customers—providing security, encryption, and advanced integration capabilities—but also a core component of Temporal Cloud’s own infrastructure, powering hybrid-cloud scenarios and new functionality such as HTTP endpoint support and AI/agent workloads.

The role spans architecture, cross-team collaboration, customer engagement, open-source leadership, and long-term product ownership, with a mandate to build and deliver a reliable, extensible foundation that will serve both customer-facing and internal needs for years to come.

 

To see a demo of prior work by the CGS team via a keynote at a Temporal Replay Conference. Liang Mei (CGS eng. leader), demos work (see: around 37 minutes into the video).    See demo [new window opens]

 

The Need for a General Proxy

The Unified Proxy will be a critical enabler for both customers and Temporal Cloud. It is a foundational component that will unlock the next phase of Temporal’s platform evolution:

• Customer Trust & Security

  Customers can depend on the proxy as a secure, production-grade tool that enforces policies consistently and reduces the risk of misconfiguration across all Temporal-related activities. Key concerns addressed include payload encryption, fine-grained authorization logic, and integration with custom identity stores, among others.

• Enabling New Critical Functionality

  The unified proxy introduces capabilities that are otherwise not possible, such as migrations between self-hosted clusters and Temporal Cloud without requiring complex custom setups. It will also become the preferred way to support HTTP endpoints for Temporal services, expanding accessibility and simplifying integrations.

• Foundation for the AI Era

  In a future where AI agents are abundant and interact via the Temporal Nexus protocol with MCP servers, the proxy will serve as a central component to ensure secure, controlled, and seamless communication patterns.

• Core Part of Temporal Cloud Infrastructure

  Beyond enabling customer adoption, the unified proxy is a pillar of Temporal Cloud’s own infrastructure, powering internal services and extending Temporal’s ability to support hybrid-cloud and enterprise-grade scenarios.

Key Responsibilities

• Technical Leadership
  • Define and drive the architecture for a unified, pluggable proxy framework.
  • Establish technical standards for authentication, authorization, encryption, and observability across proxy implementations.
  • Evaluate and integrate existing customer-built, S2S, and Cloud Auth proxies into a single supported solution.
• Strategic Alignment & Productization
  • Translate high-level business and security requirements into technical designs.
  • Ensure proxy meets Tier 0 workload reliability, security, and performance standards.
  • Partner with Product, Security, and Customer Success to align roadmap with customer needs.