Sustaining Engineer

About Us:

Proofpoint is a global leader in human- and agent-centric cybersecurity. We protect how people, data, and AI agents connect across email, cloud, and collaboration tools. Over 80 of the Fortune 100, 10,000 large enterprises, and millions of smaller organizations trust Proofpoint to stop threats, prevent data loss, and build resilience across their people and AI workflows. Our mission is simple: safeguard the digital world and empower people to work securely and confidently. Join us in our pursuit to defend data and protect people.

How We Work:

At Proofpoint you’ll be part of a global team that breaks barriers to redefine cybersecurity guided by our BRAVE core values: 

Bold in how we dream and innovate

Responsive to feedback, challenges and opportunities

Accountable for results and best in class outcomes

Visionary in future focused problem-solving

Exceptional in execution and impact

Sustaining Engineer – Archive Platform

Company Overview

At Proofpoint, we protect people, data, and brands from advanced threats and compliance risks. We build andoperatea highly scalable cloud security platform trusted by more than half of the Fortune 100. Our teams combine deep technicalexpertisewith operational excellence to deliver resilient, high-scale systems that customers rely on every day.

The Role

We areseekinga highly technical Sustaining Engineer to support and strengthen our Archive platform. This role sits at the intersection of engineering and production operations andis responsible fordeep technical investigations, root cause analysis, and long-term stability improvements.

Our Archive solution is a large-scale distributed system spanning legacy data center components and modern AWS cloud infrastructure. The codebase is extensive and complex, and this role requires a fullstackengineer who can move confidently across services, APIs, databases, messaging systems, and infrastructure layers.

This is not a traditional support role. You will act as an engineering owner for production issues, working directly in the code, debugging live systems, and implementing durable fixes that improve reliability and performance.

You will alsoparticipateas part of the24x7 on-call rotationfor the Sustaining Engineeringteam,andplay a key role inmaintainingproductionhealth for mission critical services.

What You Will Do

·Lead deep technical investigations into production issues across the Archive platform

·Perform root cause analysis acrossapplication,database, infrastructure, and cloud layers

·Implement code level and architectural fixes to improve system reliability

·Partner with Support and Product teams on high severity customer escalations, occasionally participatingdirectly in customer calls and interactions

·Assist Operations teams tomaintainservice availability and daily “firefighting”

·Drive systemic improvements that reduce recurring incidents and operational toil

·Improve observability, logging, and debugging capabilities

·Contribute to zero downtime deployments and service resiliency improvements

·Participate in on-call rotation and respond to critical production incidents

What You Bring

·5 or more years of experience building andoperatingcommercial software systems

·Strongproficiencyin one or more  object-oriented languages such as C#, Java, or PythonC++ 

·Extensive experienceworking withapplications built onAWSManaged Servicesincluding EC2, S3, RDS,DynamoDB, and EKS

·Deep understanding of distributed systems, concurrency, and high availability architectures

·Experience debugging complex, large scale production systems

·Full stack capability across backend services, APIs, databases, and infrastructure, with comfort in both Linux and WindowsOS environments

·Experience working in hybrid environments spanning data center and AWS cloud

·Strong troubleshooting and analytical skills with the ability to diagnose ambiguous system failures

·Experience with CI/CD, source control, automated testing, and production monitoring tools

·Ability to work effectively in high pressure situations and manage multiple priorities

·Excellentwritten and verbalcommunication skillsincluding the ability to explain complex technical issues clearly

·
Preferred Qualifications

·Familiarity with messaging systems, search platforms, and large-scale storage systems

·Experience with Microsoft Exchange and MAPI

·A strong understanding of GenAI fundamentals and working experience using Agentic AI development tools and techniques

·Experienceparticipatingin or leading incident response

Why This Role Matters

The Archive platform supports some of the largest organizations in the world. Reliability and performance are critical. This role ensures that our systemsremainresilient, scalable, and stable while we continue to evolve the architecture and migrate customers to thecloud-nativeArchive 6.0platform.

If you enjoy solving hard technical problems, diving into complex systems, and improving production reliability at scale, this role will challenge and reward you.

Why Proofpoint?

At Proofpoint, we believe that an exceptional career experience includes a comprehensive compensation and benefits package. Here are just a few reasons you’ll love working with us:

• Competitive compensation

  
  

• Comprehensive benefits

  
  

• Career success on your terms

  
  

• Flexible work environment

  
  

• Annual wellness and community outreach days

  
  

• Always on recognition for your contributions

  
  

• Global collaboration and networking opportunities

  
  

Our Culture:

Our culture is rooted in values that inspire belonging, empower purpose and drive success-every day, for everyone.

We encourage applications from individuals of all backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. If you need accommodation during the application or interview process, please reach out to accessibility@proofpoint.com.

How to Apply

Interested? Submit your application along with any supporting information- we can’t wait to hear from you!