Staff Software Developer

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 Stream Processing & Analytics (SPA) team is building an elastic, reliable, durable, cost-effective, and performant stream processing engine based on Apache Flink for Confluent Cloud. This role is critical in defining and executing the long-term vision around a scalable, efficient, resilient and true cloud native data stream processor, including initiatives enabling autoscaling and limitless state management, ensuring a zero-knob and worry-free experience for our users and customers by providing the right amount of stream processing at any given point in time, allowing customers to focus on building their use case without managing infrastructure complexities.

What You Will Do:

• Architect and Drive Technical Strategy: Own the architecture and technical strategy for a complex engineering system (e.g., a core component of scheduling, deployment, autoscaling, or state management) within the Flink engine.

• Contribute to the broader technical vision and translate it into actionable, high-impact projects aligned with Confluent Cloud’s strategic goals.

• Exercise sound judgment in balancing short-term implementation efforts versus long-term architectural health.

• Complex Project Execution: Independently drive the execution of open-ended, complicated technical projects within your area of expertise or across peer teams from inception through production.

• Identify and initiate high leverage, high impact projects in your area of expertise and gain buy-in from stakeholders.

• Significantly simplify the complexity of code and design to help the team and company move fast.

• Technical Expertise and Operational Excellence:Serve as the sought-out technical expert for your domain, driving great quality and impact to architectural designs for your team and peer teams.

• Improve the stability, performance, scalability, and operational excellence across multiple critical systems within the SPA team.

• Act as a subject matter expert for troubleshooting and improving operational automation, proactively addressing systemic issues.

• Mentorship and Communication:Demonstrate strong, clear, succinct technical communication skills (written and verbal) to drive clear decisions and uplevel communication for the team.

• Mentor and coach junior and mid-level engineers, helping the team grow sustainably (e.g., by setting up processes/tools that make others successful).

What You Will Bring:

• Deep Expertise: BS, MS, or PhD in computer science or a related field, or equivalent work experience, typically involving 8+ years of relevant experience in stream processing or large-scale distributed systems.

• Architectural Acumen: Demonstrated strong fundamentals and extensive experience in the architecture, design, and development of a complex engineering system from end to end.

• Strategic Influence: Proven ability to lead efforts with a group OR own a deep technical area individually, and effectively align small groups on technical direction.

• Cloud Native Knowledge: Strong understanding of cloud engineering principles, including building and operating mission-critical systems in public cloud environments.

• Polyglot Proficiency: Proficiency in Go, Java, Scala, or Rust with the ability to contribute technically to development in these languages.

What Gives You an Edge:

• Specialized Domain Knowledge: Deep expertise in the design, implementation, and optimization of large-scale, fault-tolerant state management systems, distributed storage systems, or high-throughput messaging systems.

• Open Source Engagement: Recognized, impactful technical contributions to open-source stream processing projects, particularly Apache Flink.

• Cloud Operations: Hands-on experience designing and operating Kubernetes operators for distributed applications.

Ready to build what's next? Let’s get in motion.

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.

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.