Senior Software Engineer - Cloud Platform Control Plane

IBM Computing; Ottawa; On-site; CAD 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

IBM Software is transforming client challenges into solutions and building AI-powered, cloud-native products that shape the future of business. Backend engineers join a distributed, high-availability data platform and collaborate with product managers, designers, and other engineers to ship features end-to-end.

You will own features, work with microservices, and focus on performance, API contracts, and reliability. IBM emphasizes ownership, collaboration, and continuous learning at global scale.

Qualifications

• 3+ years designing, building, and supporting backend systems in production.
• Proficiency in Java, Go or Python with ability to learn new languages.
• Experience with microservices, data pipelines, or high-throughput APIs.
• Experience deploying and operating services on public clouds (AWS, GCP or Azure).
• Familiarity with relational and NoSQL databases and distributed data systems.
• Focus on quality, reliability, testing, observability, and incident response.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and operate backend services in a cloud-native environment.
• Own features end-to-end: requirements, design, implementation, rollout, and improvements.
• Work with microservices, focusing on performance, resiliency, and clear API contracts.
• Contribute to service reliability, monitoring, and on-call participation where applicable.
• Collaborate on architecture, data modeling, and integration points across the platform.
• Write clean, well-tested code and participate in code reviews to raise quality.
• Improve engineering practices and tooling to make shipping code safer.

Skills

Java

Go

Python

Microservices

Cloud-native

API design

Observability

CI/CD

Distributed systems

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

AWS/GCP/Azure

Job description

Introduction

At IBM Software, we transform client challenges into solutions. Building the world's leading AI-powered, cloud-native products that shape the future of business and society. Our legacy of innovation creates endless opportunities for IBMers to learn, grow, and make an impact on a global scale. Working in Software means joining a team fueled by curiosity and collaboration. You'll work with diverse technologies, partners, and industries to design, develop, and deliver solutions that power digital transformation. With a culture that values innovation, growth, and continuous learning, IBM Software places you at the heart of IBM's product and technology landscape. Here, you'll have the tools and opportunities to advance your career while creating software that changes the world.

Your role and responsibilities

Backend engineers at Confluent build the services and systems that power our data streaming platform. You'll work on large-scale, distributed backend systems that need to be highly available, reliable, and easy to operate.

This is a backend role for Control Plane Resource Platform. You'll partner closely with other engineers, product managers, and designers to ship features end to end - from design and implementation to rollout and ongoing operation in production.

What You Will Do

• Design, build, and operate backend services that are secure, reliable, and scalable in a cloud-native environment.
• Own features and projects end to end: requirements, design, implementation, testing, rollout, and ongoing improvements.
• Work with and microservices, with a focus on performance, resiliency, and clear API contracts.
• Contribute to service reliability and operations, including monitoring, alerting, and on-call participation where applicable.
• Collaborate with partner teams on architecture, data modeling, and integration points across Confluent's platform.
• Write clean, well-tested, and well-documented code, and participate in code reviews that raise the bar for the team.
• Help improve engineering practices, tools, and automation to make it easier and safer to ship code.

• Contribute to a healthy team culture through clear communication, inclusive collaboration, and a willingness to learn and teach.

Why join Confluent and Cloud Platform Control Plane

• Work on mission-critical infrastructure at global scale, used by thousands of customers in production.
• Partner with a strong group of senior and staff engineers across Cloud Platform, Kafka, and Compute.
• Help define the next generation of Confluent Cloud's control plane, with real influence on architecture, reliability, and developer experience.
• Join a culture that values ownership, operational excellence, and one-team collaboration.

Required technical and professional expertise

• 3+ years of industry experience designing, building, and supporting backend systems in production.
• Strong programming and algorithmic skills in at least one major language (for example, Java, Go Lang or Python), and the ability to learn new languages and frameworks as needed.
• Experience with or large-scale backend services, such as microservices, data pipelines, event-driven architectures, or high-throughput APIs.
• Hands-on experience deploying and operating services on a public (AWS, GCP, or Azure), including knowledge of containers and orchestration tools (for example, Docker and Kubernetes).
• Familiarity with databases and storage systems, such as relational databases, NoSQL stores, or distributed data systems, and an understanding of performance and scalability tradeoffs.
• A focus on quality and reliability, including testing strategies, observability (metrics, logging, tracing), and incident response best practices.

Preferred technical and professional experience

• L3 Support Engineering: Exposure to L3 support engineering practices, including designing, developing, and testing solutions to resolve complex customer-reported problems.
• DevOps Engineering: Experience working with DevOps engineering principles, contributing to the automated CI/CD pipeline, and ensuring seamless integration and delivery.
• Front-End Development: Exposure to front-end development technologies, designing, developing, testing, and delivering offerings using leading-edge and/or proven technologies.

IBM is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an equal-opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, caste, genetics, pregnancy, disability, neurodivergence, age, veteran status, or other characteristics. IBM is also committed to compliance with all fair employment practices regarding citizenship and immigration status.