Staff Software Engineer - Cloud Platform

IBM; Toronto; On-site; CAD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

IBM is seeking a Staff Software Engineer I to lead the design and delivery of a foundational control plane platform powering Confluent Cloud. You will own technically complex projects across multiple services and teams, shaping architecture and reliability.

You will combine distributed systems expertise with strong execution and cross-team leadership, driving high-leverage work from idea to durable impact while mentoring engineers and improving developer experience.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of software engineering experience with backend or distributed systems.
• Deep hands-on experience with distributed systems design and cloud platforms.
• Strong coding skills in Go, Java, or Scala and cross-service collaboration.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end architecture and delivery of control-plane systems powering cloud products.
• Lead cross-team technical initiatives; clarify requirements and drive execution.
• Raise reliability with observability, SLOs, runbooks, and safe rollout patterns.
• Collaborate with multiple orgs to align on designs and long-term platform direction.
• Mentor engineers across levels; provide high-quality design reviews.

Skills

Distributed systems

Cloud platforms

Go/Java/Scala

Leadership

Communication

Education

Master's Degree

Tools

Kubernetes

CI/CD

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.

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

About the role

We’re looking for a Staff Software Engineer I to lead the design and delivery of a foundational control plane platform that powers Confluent Cloud. In this role you will own highly technical projects across multiple services and teams, shaping the architecture and reliability of our cloud platform.

You’ll combine deep distributed systems expertise with strong execution and cross‑team leadership, identifying high‑leverage problems and driving them from idea to durable impact.

What You’ll Do

• Own end‑to‑end architecture and delivery of complex control‑plane systems (APIs, controllers, orchestration workflows, data models) that support Confluent Cloud products.
• Lead open‑ended technical initiatives: take ambiguous problems, clarify requirements, define the approach, and drive execution across teams and services.
• Raise the bar on reliability and operations by building resilient systems with strong observability, clear SLOs, runbooks, and safe rollout/rollback patterns.
• Collaborate across orgs (Cloud Platform, Kafka, Compute, Security, Traffic, SRE and others) to align on designs, trade‑offs, and long‑term platform direction.
• Mentor and unblock engineers at multiple levels; provide high-quality design and code reviews and help grow the broader engineering team.
• Continuously improve developer experience for our control‑plane stack (tooling, automation, CI/CD, test strategy) to remove toil and increase velocity.
• Influence technical strategy in your domain: identify high‑impact opportunities, propose roadmaps, and help prioritize work aligned with business goals.
• Contribute to engineering culture via documentation, design reviews, and knowledge sharing (internal talks, wikis, or external content where appropriate).

Preferred Education

Master's Degree

Required Technical And Professional Expertise

• Experienced builder: Typically, 8+ years of software engineering experience, with a strong track record of delivering complex backend or distributed systems to production.
• Distributed systems & cloud expert: Deep hands‑on experience with at least some of:
• Distributed systems design (consistency models, failure modes, data modeling, scalability).
• Cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and cloud‑native architectures.
• Kubernetes or similar orchestration platforms.
• Strong systems and coding skills: Proficiency in one or more of Go, Java or Scala, and comfort working across services, infrastructure, and automation.
• Architect & executor: Able to define end‑to‑end designs, break them into milestones, de‑risk early, and land them on time with high quality.
• Operationally rigorous: You think in terms of SLOs, failure modes, observability, and incident response; you design for safe change and graceful degradation.
• Great communicator: You write clear design docs, explain trade‑offs crisply, and can lead technical discussions with diverse stakeholders (engineers, PMs, leadership).
• Leader without authority: You’ve successfully led cross‑team projects, influenced technical direction beyond your immediate code, and helped others level up.
• Values‑aligned: You care about customer impact, reliability, long‑term maintainability, and helping the team win, not just shipping features.

Preferred Technical And Professional Experience

Nice to have

• Experience building control‑plane systems (APIs, operators/controllers, metadata services, provisioning/orchestration workflows).
• Background with Apache Kafka or other streaming/data systems.
• Prior work on multi‑region, high‑availability, or disaster‑recovery architectures.
• Experience in security‑sensitive infrastructure (identity, certificates, secrets, mTLS, policy) or compliance‑driven environments.
• Contributions to open source projects, public talks, or technical blogs in relevant areas.

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.