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Staff Software Engineer, Web Application Services

Mozilla

Fully Remote
Remote
Worldwide
US hours

Hirezar Summary for South African Applicants

This fully remote full time position at Mozilla is open worldwide, so South Africans can apply. As a remote position, you can work from anywhere in South Africa — whether you're based in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, or a smaller town.

Job Description

<p><strong>Why Thunderbird?</strong></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Thunderbird is one of the world’s most trusted open-source email applications, empowering more than 20 million people globally. At Thunderbird, we build privacy-respecting communication and productivity tools that help people manage their digital lives while staying in control of their data.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">We are open source by design. Our products are developed transparently and in collaboration with a global community of contributors, and that same spirit shapes how we work: collaboratively, inclusively, and with a shared commitment to putting users first.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Our small but growing distributed team includes more than 65 people across seven countries. As Thunderbird evolves beyond a single desktop application, we are expanding across desktop, mobile, paid services, AI offerings, and enterprise-facing work to build independent, privacy-respecting alternatives to big tech ecosystems.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Our revenue model combines user donations, which help keep Thunderbird’s applications freely available, with paid services that cover the costs of hosted offerings while supporting long-term sustainability and continued innovation.</span></p>
<p><strong>A note about Thunderbird and Mozilla: </strong><span style="font-weight: 400;">Thunderbird Technologies Corporation is the nonprofit-owned company behind Thunderbird email and a growing portfolio of products. While part of the Mozilla family, Thunderbird is a separate entity from Mozilla Corporation and Mozilla Foundation with its own compensation programs, benefits, and employment policies.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">To learn more, visit&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.thunderbird.net"><span style="font-weight: 400;">www.thunderbird.net</span></a></p>
<p><strong>The opportunity</strong></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">As a Staff Software Engineer, Services, you’ll help shape the architecture and technical direction of web-based products that extend Thunderbird beyond email. The Services team is currently focused on building offerings such as an appointment calendar and secure file storage and transfer solutions, creating valuable experiences for our users while supporting additional revenue streams for Thunderbird.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">This is a Staff-level individual contributor role with significant technical ownership and influence. You’ll work with designers, engineers, and community members to write code, build prototypes, solve complex problems, and make technical decisions that shape our products. You’ll take a holistic view of our code and systems, helping establish the architecture and software patterns that allow our Services products to evolve and scale.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">You’ll also take on broad, ambiguous problems that have a direct impact on our goals, from improving our technical architecture to helping grow Services users and subscribers. Along the way, you’ll provide technical and product direction across teams, mentor other engineers, and identify ways to make our systems and processes more sustainable, scalable, and easier to work with.</span></p>
<p><strong>What you’ll do&nbsp;</strong></p>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Lead the technical architecture of new Services products, taking ownership of complex projects and identifying improvements that strengthen our systems as they evolve.</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Write code, build prototypes and experiments, and contribute throughout the development lifecycle, from planning and testing through implementation, monitoring, and maintenance.</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Help establish software patterns and make technical decisions across our Services products, including investigating and proposing technology choices.</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Build and evolve analytics and infrastructure that help the team use user-generated data to inform decisions.</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Take on ambiguous, high-level problems with broad scope and direct impact on Services goals, including growing users and subscribers.</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Provide technical and product direction across Thunderbird and lead technical collaboration with other parts of Mozilla and community contributors when needed.</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Work closely with the team and community to surface issues, refine ideas, and develop practical solutions.</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Identify and plan improvements that ma

Tips for South African Applicants

Timezone Advantage

South Africa (SAST, UTC+2) overlaps well with European business hours and has a few hours of overlap with US East Coast. Mention your timezone flexibility in your application.

Salary in Context

Even without a listed salary, international remote roles typically pay 2-3x more than equivalent local positions in South Africa due to the exchange rate advantage.

Application Tips

Tailor your CV to international standards — use a clean format, highlight remote work experience, and include your English proficiency. Many SA applicants succeed by emphasising their strong work ethic and cultural adaptability.

Load Shedding Preparedness

If you're applying for a remote role, having a backup power solution (UPS, inverter, or generator) and mobile data as a backup internet connection shows employers you're prepared for South Africa's infrastructure challenges.

About Mozilla

Mozilla is a company in the Firefox industry that hires remote workers from South Africa. They currently have 28 open positions on Hirezar. View all Mozilla jobs →