Staff Cloud Platform Engineer — Distributed Systems Leader

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

Job summary

IBM Software in Canada seeks a Staff Software Engineer I to lead the design and delivery of foundational control plane platforms powering Confluent Cloud. You will own complex initiatives across multiple teams, shaping architecture, scalability, and reliability.

The role demands deep expertise in distributed systems, cloud platforms, and Kubernetes, with strong coding skills in Go/Java/Scala and a track record of mentoring engineers and delivering high-quality software.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of software engineering experience with backend or distributed systems
• Strong hands-on experience with distributed systems design and cloud platforms
• Experience with Kubernetes or similar orchestration platforms
• Proficiency in Go, Java or Scala and cross-service collaboration
• Ability to define end-to-end designs, milestones, and delivery plans
• Operational mindset with emphasis on SLOs, observability, and resilience
• Excellent written and verbal communication for design docs and reviews
• Proven track record mentoring engineers and leading cross-team initiatives

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end architecture, design, and delivery of complex control plane systems
• Lead cross-team initiatives, define requirements, and drive execution
• Improve platform reliability and observability with robust runbooks and safe deployment
• Collaborate with Cloud Platform, Kafka, Compute, Security, SRE teams on architecture
• Mentor engineers and elevate engineering standards across the org
• Improve developer productivity via tooling, CI/CD, testing, and processes
• Define roadmaps and prioritize initiatives aligned to business goals
• Contribute to engineering culture through documentation and knowledge sharing

Skills

Distributed systems

Cloud platforms

Kubernetes

Go

Java

Scala

Architectural leadership

Mentor engineers

Education

Master's Degree

Tools

Kafka

Job description

IBM Software in Canada seeks a Staff Software Engineer I to lead the design and delivery of foundational control plane platforms powering Confluent Cloud. You will own complex initiatives across multiple teams, shaping architecture, scalability, and reliability.

The role demands deep expertise in distributed systems, cloud platforms, and Kubernetes, with strong coding skills in Go/Java/Scala and a track record of mentoring engineers and delivering high-quality software.