Senior Software Development Manager - Confluent

IBM; Bengaluru; On-site; INR 3,500,000 - 5,500,000; Full time

Job summary

IBM Software in Bengaluru seeks a Senior Software Development Manager to lead a team delivering features and high-quality Kafka releases for Confluent. You will guide technical delivery, coach team members, and partner with Architects, Product Managers, and leaders to tackle distributed systems challenges at scale.

You will influence roadmaps, drive cross-functional execution, and uphold ownership and accountability for performance, security, and reliability across services.

Qualifications

• 11+ years in software development and 2+ years in engineering management.
• Strong understanding of systems concepts including performance characteristics.
• Ability to read and review code and designs in Java, Go, or similar.
• Experience designing and operating resilient systems at scale across CSPs.

Responsibilities

• Drive execution on complex projects and align with product roadmaps.
• Lead, mentor, and hire or develop a high-performance team.
• Foster ownership, perform root-cause analyses, and improve reliability.
• Collaborate with product management and engineering leadership across teams.

Skills

Team leadership

Software development

Kafka

Distributed systems

Performance optimization

Education

Bachelor's Degree

Master's Degree

Tools

Java

Go

Job description

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

As a Senior Software Development Manager, you will lead a team of engineers building features, enhancing performance, and delivering high-quality Kafka releases for Confluent. You will oversee both technical delivery and people leadership, partnering closely with Architects, Product Managers, and organizational leaders. This role requires technical expertise to guide projects, navigate ambiguity, evaluate requirements, and elevate team performance. You will define the vision, coach team members, and drive cross-functional efforts to tackle complex distributed systems challenges at scale with foresight, prioritization, and a strong bias for action.

• Drive execution on complex projects, dive deep, make tradeoffs and deliver a delightful experience for our customers. Look ahead and drive the direction of the product working with the Product team.
• Lead & Mentor: Grow, coach, and nurture a high-performance team. You will be responsible for hiring, performance management, and keeping a high bar for talent. Create an environment where engineers can do their best work-through clear expectations, coaching, feedback, and career development.
• Foster Operational Excellence: Champion a strong culture of ownership and continuous improvement. You will lead effective root cause analyses and implement corrective actions to improve the security, reliability, and performance of your services.
• Collaborate & Influence: Work closely with product management, engineering leadership, and stakeholders across Confluent. You will align roadmaps and foster strong partnerships to solve complex challenges that cross organizational boundaries.

Bachelor's Degree

Preferred education

Master's Degree

Required technical and professional expertise

• 11+ years in software development and 2+ years in an engineering management role.
• Strong understanding of systems concepts including performance characteristics, features of real time systems
• Ability to read and review code and designs in languages commonly used at Confluent (e.g., Java, Go, or similar).
• High judgement on technical directions to take, evaluate the complexity of projects and accurately estimate resources.
• Experience designing and operating resilient systems at scale, in the three major CSPs (AWS, Azure, GCP), with a proven track record of "seeing around corners" to reduce complexity and create critical enduring technical foundations.
• A track record of leading and nurturing high-performance teams, with strong collaboration skills and the ability to execute against complex, cross-functional roadmaps.

Experience on Apache Kafka.

Years of Experience:11-18

ABOUT BUSINESS UNIT

IBM Software infuses core business operations with intelligence-from machine learning to generative AI to help make organizations more responsive, productive, and resilient. IBM Software helps clients put AI into action now to create real value with trust, speed, and confidence across digital labor, IT automation, application modernization, security, and sustainability. Critical to this is the ability to make use of all data, because AI is only as good as the data that fuels it. In most organizations data is spread across multiple clouds, on premises, in private datacenters, and at the edge. IBM's AI and data platform scales and accelerates the impact of AI with trusted data, and provides leading capabilities to train, tune and deploy AI across business. IBM's hybrid cloud platform is one of the most comprehensive and consistent approach to development, security, and operations across hybrid environments-a flexible foundation for leveraging data, wherever it resides, to extend AI deep into a business.

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Being an IBMer means you'll be able to learn and develop yourself and your career, you'll be encouraged to be courageous and experiment everyday, all whilst having continuous trust and support in an environment where everyone can thrive whatever their personal or professional background.

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