Staff Software Engineer - Cloud Platform – Control Plane

IBM Computing; Markham; On-site; CAD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

IBM Software is shaping the future with distributed systems and cloud-native platforms. Staff Software Engineer I will lead design and delivery of foundational control plane platforms powering Confluent Cloud, owning architecture and driving cross-team collaboration.

You will mentor engineers, improve observability and CI/CD, and influence long-term platform strategy while delivering durable business value.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of software engineering experience delivering backend or distributed systems.
• Deep knowledge of distributed systems and cloud-native architectures.
• Experience with Kubernetes and one of Go, Java, or Scala.
• Strong written and verbal communication to lead cross-functional discussions.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end architecture and delivery of complex control plane systems.
• Lead ambiguous technical initiatives across multiple teams and services.
• Improve platform reliability with observability, SLOs, runbooks, and safe deployments.
• Partner across Cloud Platform, Kafka, Compute, Security, SRE for alignment.
• Mentor engineers and perform design reviews to raise standards.
• Improve tooling, CI/CD, testing strategies, and operational workflows.
• Develop roadmaps and prioritize initiatives aligned to business goals.
• Document designs and contribute to knowledge sharing.

Skills

Distributed systems

Leadership

Architectural design

Communication

Tools

Kubernetes

AWS

GCP

Azure

Go

Java

Scala

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

About the Role

We're looking for a Staff Software Engineer I to lead the design and delivery of foundational control plane platforms that power Confluent Cloud. In this role, you will own highly complex technical initiatives that span multiple services and engineering teams, helping shape the architecture, scalability, and reliability of our cloud platform.

You will combine deep expertise in distributed systems with strong execution and cross-functional leadership, identifying high-impact opportunities and driving them from concept through implementation. This is a highly influential role focused on solving complex engineering challenges, improving platform capabilities, and delivering durable business and customer value.

What You'll Do

• Own the end-to-end architecture, design, and delivery of complex control plane systems, including APIs, controllers, orchestration workflows, and data models that support Confluent Cloud products.

• Lead ambiguous, open-ended technical initiatives by defining requirements, evaluating trade-offs, establishing technical direction, and driving execution across multiple teams and services.

• Improve platform reliability and operational excellence by building resilient systems with robust observability, well-defined SLOs, comprehensive runbooks, and safe deployment and rollback mechanisms.

• Partner with engineering organizations across Cloud Platform, Kafka, Compute, Security, Traffic, SRE, and other teams to align on architecture, design decisions, and long-term platform strategy.

• Mentor engineers across multiple career levels, provide thoughtful design and code reviews, and help elevate engineering standards throughout the organization.

• Enhance developer productivity and experience by improving tooling, automation, CI/CD pipelines, testing strategies, and operational workflows.

• Influence technical strategy within your domain by identifying high-impact opportunities, developing roadmaps, and helping prioritize initiatives aligned to business objectives.

• Contribute to engineering culture through technical documentation, design reviews, knowledge sharing, internal presentations, technical mentoring, and external thought leadership where appropriate.

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

• 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.

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.