Staff Software Engineer - Cloud Platform

IBM; Markham; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

IBM Software is looking for a Staff Software Engineer I to lead the design and delivery of a foundational control plane platform powering Confluent Cloud. You will own backend and distributed systems across multiple services, shaping architecture and reliability standards.

You’ll mentor engineers, drive cross-team initiatives, and define roadmaps with strong emphasis on observability and scalable design, collaborating with Cloud Platform, Kafka, Compute, and Security teams.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of software engineering experience in backend or distributed systems.
• Distributed systems & cloud expertise across AWS, GCP, or Azure.
• Experience with Kubernetes or similar orchestration.
• Proficiency in Go, Java, or Scala across services.
• Architectural design and end-to-end execution discipline.
• Operational rigor with observability, SLOs, and incident response.
• Strong communication and cross-team leadership.
• Influenced technical direction beyond own scope.
• Customer-focused with reliability and long-term maintainability.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end architecture and delivery of complex control-plane systems.
• Lead open-ended technical initiatives across teams and services.
• Improve reliability with observability, SLOs, and safe rollout patterns.
• Collaborate with Cloud Platform, Kafka, Compute, Security, and SRE.
• Mentor engineers and conduct design reviews.
• Improve developer experience for control-plane stack, CI/CD, testing.
• Define roadmaps and prioritize work aligned with goals.
• Contribute to engineering culture through docs and knowledge sharing.

Skills

Backend development

Distributed systems

Cloud platforms

Kubernetes

Go/Java/Scala

Architectural design

Observability & SRE

Cross-team leadership

Communication skills

Education

Master's Degree

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.