Staff Software Engineer I - Confluent Platform

We’re not just building better tech. We’re rewriting how data moves and what the world can do with it. With Confluent, data doesn’t sit still. Our platform puts information in motion, streaming in near real-time so companies can react faster, build smarter, and deliver experiences as dynamic as the world around them. It takes a certain kind of person to join this team. Those who ask hard questions, give honest feedback, and show up for each other. No egos, no solo acts. Just smart, curious humans pushing toward something bigger, together. One Confluent. One Team. One Data Streaming Platform. ABOUT THE ROLE: The Confluent Platform (CP) team has steadily expanded its charter since its inception. As a Staff Software Engineer I, you will set the technical direction and drive significant advancements within this continually growing scope. This role sits at the intersection of platform architecture, large-scale distributed systems, and mission-critical customer operations, with influence and impact across the entire Confluent Platform organization. A cornerstone of our strategy is the Unified Stream Manager (USM) hybrid-first offerings. We are developing platform capabilities that provide a consistent, enterprise-grade experience in management, observability, and security across on-prem, cloud, and hybrid environments. You will help architect and deliver these foundational USM capabilities, enabling customers to effortlessly operate, monitor, and secure Confluent Platform deployments across multiple clouds and regions. Your work will directly shape how enterprises run Kafka at scale amid increasingly complex regulatory and operational environments. You will own open-ended problem spaces, explore new ideas, develop prototypes, and bring the most promising solutions into production systems that deliver real customer value. As one of the leading technologists in the Confluent Platform organization, you will help shape platform architecture, review designs and code, influence technical direction across teams, and contribute to defining the long-term vision and roadmap for the platform. WHAT YOU WILL DO: - Technically lead the evolution of the Confluent Platform, with deep ownership of USM, hybrid-first management, and platform-wide operational capabilities. - Partner closely with product management, engineering leadership, and cross-org stakeholders (including Confluent Cloud) to define and execute the CP roadmap. - Act as a strong external technical voice for Confluent Platform across the company. - Champion domain health, operational hygiene, and platform reliability; raise the bar through design and code reviews. - Lead architecture and design of large, complex systems spanning distributed systems, Kubernetes, security, and observability. - Mentor and grow senior engineers and technical leads, providing hands-on guidance and career mentorship. Represent and strengthen engineering leadership in India, setting standards for execution, communication, and engineering excellence. Build and evolve processes that enable teams to operate at scale without sacrificing quality or velocity. WHAT YOU WILL BRING: - 10+ years of hands-on software development experience, with a proven ability to anticipate future technical needs and execute toward them. - A strong track record of taking ideas from concept to production in complex, high-scale systems. - Willingness to roll up your sleeves—design, code, debug, and operate critical systems. - Deep experience building and operating large-scale distributed systems, including strong fundamentals in OS, networking, storage, and cloud infrastructure. - Excellent grounding in distributed systems, concurrency, and multi-threaded programming. - A proactive, self-starter mindset with strong problem-solving skills—identifying root causes and driving durable fixes. - Ability to balance short-term execution with long-term architectural integrity; ship incrementally and iterate with urgency. - Strong influence skills—able to drive technical decisions across teams and senior leadership through clear, data-driven communication. - Experience handling high-severity production issues, including on-call ownership, deep debugging, and mitigation under pressure. BS/MS in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience. WHAT GIVES YOU AN EDGE: - Experience in open-source development - Experience using Apache Kafka, Apache Flink, Apache Spark is a big plus - Interest in evangelism (giving talks at tech conferences, writing blog posts evangelizing Kafka) - Experience working on stream processing technology or query processing systems - Data processing systems in general READY TO BUILD WHAT'S NEXT? LET’S GET IN MOTION. COME AS YOU ARE Belonging isn’t a perk here. It’s the baseline. We work across time zones and backgrounds, knowing the best ideas come from different perspectives. And we make space for everyone to lead, grow, and challenge what’s possible. We’re proud to be an equal opportunity workplace. Employment decisions are based on job-related criteria, without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status, or any other classification protected by law. PRIVACY STATEMENT Confluent is an IBM subsidiary which has been acquired by IBM and will be integrated into the IBM organization. By proceeding with this application, you understand that Confluent will share your personal information with other IBM affiliates involved in your recruitment process, wherever these are located. More Information on how IBM protects your personal information, including the safeguards in case of cross-border data transfer, are available here http://ibm.com/careers/us-en/privacy-policy/.