Distinguished, Software Engineer
Walmart · Bengaluru · Posted 2026-07-09
Tech stack: Go, Java, Kubernetes, Python
Apply on the company site · Get a referral for this role
Walmart salary & ratings · Walmart interview process · More live openings
About the role
Run Time Platforms (RTP), a division of Global Technology Platform (GTP), builds the core products and platforms that enable application teams to deploy, operate, and scale services consistently across Walmart’s runtime environments. RTP’s mission is to reduce operational complexity and accelerate delivery by providing secure-by-default, reliable, and standardized runtime capabilities—so teams can focus on building customer and associate experiences rather than reinventing infrastructure.
Within RTP, the Service Registry & Service Mesh team provides the foundational connectivity layer for modern distributed systems. We build and operate platforms that make it easy for services to find each other, communicate securely, and be governed consistently across clusters, environments, and markets. Our work underpins service-to-service communication for a large fleet of microservices and supports high-throughput, latency-sensitive workloads.
As a Distinguished Engineer on the RTP Service Mesh team, you will lead the architecture, strategy, and technical execution of a service mesh platform (Istio or similar) supporting large-scale microservices workloads. You will operate at enterprise scope—defining reference architectures, driving multi-cluster patterns, ensuring operational excellence, and partnering with security, networking, SRE, and product teams to deliver a platform that is secure-by-default and easy to adopt. You will also mentor senior engineers and influence technical decisions across GTP to raise the bar on platform reliability, performance, and developer experience.
Responsibilities:
- Define and own the long-term technical vision and reference architecture for the Service Mesh platform across GTP.
- Lead design and implementation of enterprise-scale Istio (or similar) deployments, including multi-cluster topologies, upgrades, and lifecycle management.
- Establish standards for service-to-service security (workload identity, mTLS, authorization policy, egress controls) aligned to zero-trust principles.
- Drive scalable patterns for traffic management and resiliency (routing, failover, timeouts/retries, circuit breaking) for latency-sensitive, high-throughput services.
- Architect and evolve multi-cluster connectivity (east-west traffic, cross-cluster discovery, gateway strategy), including failure-domain isolation and disaster recovery.
- Champion operational excellence: define SLIs/SLOs, capacity models, performance benchmarks, and runbooks; lead post-incident technical remediation.
- Build platform capabilities that improve developer experience: onboarding automation, self-service workflows, guardrails, and golden paths.
- Partner deeply with networking, security, SRE, and application teams to drive adoption, resolve cross-cutting issues, and align on platform standards.
- Guide technical decision-making through architecture reviews, design docs, and hands-on prototyping; unblock critical initiatives across teams.
- Mentor and develop senior engineers; raise engineering rigor in areas such as testing strategy, release quality, and platform operability.
Qualifications:
- 18–25 years of industry experience building and operating large-scale distributed systems and/or platform infrastructure.
- Deep expertise with container orchestration platforms (Kubernetes preferred), including networking, service discovery, RBAC, upgrades, and multi-cluster operations.
- Strong hands-on experience with service mesh technologies (Istio preferred, or Linkerd/Consul/App Mesh), including security, traffic management, and gateways.
- Expert-level understanding of cloud-native networking concepts: L4/L7 proxying (e.g., Envoy), DNS/service discovery, ingress/egress, east-west traffic, and network policy.
- Proven track record designing platforms for high availability, reliability, and performance, including SRE practices, observability, and incident management at scale.
- Experience driving enterprise architecture across multiple teams—setting standards, influencing roadmaps, and aligning stakeholders without direct authority.
- Strong security fundamentals: zero trust, certificate and key lifecycle concepts, secrets management, least privilege, and defense-in-depth.
- Proficiency in at least one modern programming language (e.g., Go, Java, Python) and ability to build platform tooling, controllers/operators, or integrations.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to explain complex trade-offs to both technical and executive audiences.
Qualifications
- 18–25 years of industry experience building and operating large-scale distributed systems and/or platform infrastructure.
- Deep expertise with container orchestration platforms (Kubernetes preferred), including networking, service discovery, RBAC, upgrades, and multi-cluster operations.
- Strong hands-on experience with service mesh technologies (Istio preferred, or Linkerd/Consul/App Mesh), including security, traffic management, and gateways.
- Expert-level understanding of cloud-native networking concepts: L4/L7 proxying (e.g., Envoy), DNS/service discovery, ingress/egress, east-west traffic, and network policy.
- Proven track record designing platforms for high availability, reliability, and performance, including SRE practices, observability, and incident management at scale.
- Experience driving enterprise architecture across multiple teams—setting standards, influencing roadmaps, and aligning stakeholders without direct authority.
- Strong security fundamentals: zero trust, certificate and key lifecycle concepts, secrets management, least privilege, and defense-in-depth.
- Proficiency in at least one modern programming language (e.g., Go, Java, Python) and ability to build platform tooling, controllers/operators, or integrations.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to explain complex trade-offs to both technical and executive audiences.
Responsibilities
- Define and own the long-term technical vision and reference architecture for the Service Mesh platform across GTP.
- Lead design and implementation of enterprise-scale Istio (or similar) deployments, including multi-cluster topologies, upgrades, and lifecycle management.
- Establish standards for service-to-service security (workload identity, mTLS, authorization policy, egress controls) aligned to zero-trust principles.
- Drive scalable patterns for traffic management and resiliency (routing, failover, timeouts/retries, circuit breaking) for latency-sensitive, high-throughput services.
- Architect and evolve multi-cluster connectivity (east-west traffic, cross-cluster discovery, gateway strategy), including failure-domain isolation and disaster recovery.
- Champion operational excellence: define SLIs/SLOs, capacity models, performance benchmarks, and runbooks; lead post-incident technical remediation.
- Build platform capabilities that improve developer experience: onboarding automation, self-service workflows, guardrails, and golden paths.
- Partner deeply with networking, security, SRE, and application teams to drive adoption, resolve cross-cutting issues, and align on platform standards.
- Guide technical decision-making through architecture reviews, design docs, and hands-on prototyping; unblock critical initiatives across teams.
- Mentor and develop senior engineers; raise engineering rigor in areas such as testing strategy, release quality, and platform operability.