Senior Software Engineer II - Confluent

IBM; Bengaluru; On-site; INR 1,500,000 - 2,500,000; Full time

Job summary

IBM Software Bengaluru is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to design, build, and operate scalable platform experiences across Kafka ecosystems. You will own complex projects end to end, collaborating with product managers, designers, and cloud teams in a hybrid environment.

You will contribute to the Confluent Platform management and control center, ensuring reliable operations in cloud and on‑prem environments, with emphasis on observability and performance under real‑world workloads.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of professional software development experience building and operating production systems.
• Strong programming and problem‑solving skills in Java, Go, C/C++, or Python.
• Experience designing, implementing, and debugging distributed systems or backend services.
• Solid understanding of systems fundamentals including networking, storage, OS, concurrency, and performance.
• Experience owning complex projects and delivering them with high quality and predictable execution.
• Experience writing technical designs and communicating trade‑offs clearly with engineers and cross‑functional partners.
• Strong engineering practices including code reviews, automated testing, observability, documentation, and operational readiness.
• Willingness to participate in on‑call rotations and handle customer‑impacting issues with urgency.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, test, and operate reliable services and product experiences for USM and Control Center.
• Own complex projects end to end from problem clarification to production validation.
• Build management and observability capabilities for Kafka and Confluent Platform across cloud, on‑premises, hybrid, and multi‑geography environments.
• Contribute to capabilities that provide consistent management, monitoring, security, and operational workflows.
• Improve workflows for local control plane environments, including cluster health, topic operations, and troubleshooting.
• Produce design documents, participate in architecture and code reviews, and balance speed with reliability.

Skills

Java

Go

C/C++

Python

Distributed systems

Backend design

Code reviews

Education

Master's Degree in CS/Engineering

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field

Tools

Apache Kafka

Kafka Connect

Kubernetes

Confluent Platform

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

The Confluent Platform Management and Control Center team builds the experiences and services that help customers operate Kafka and Confluent Platform reliably across cloud, on-premises, and hybrid environments. As a Senior Software Engineer, you will work across Unified Stream Manager (USM) and Confluent Control Center (C3) to make platform management, observability simpler and more dependable for enterprise customers. USM is the strategic, hybrid-first control plane for managing and monitoring Confluent Platform across environments. C3 remains an important local control plane for customers operating in non-hybrid, sovereign, regulated, or air‑gapped environments. You will own complex engineering problems from design through production, partnering with engineers, product managers, designers, and teams across Confluent. Your work will help customers manage clusters, connectors, topics, and streaming workloads with greater visibility, confidence, and operational control. This role is a strong fit for an engineer who enjoys working across distributed systems and product surfaces, solving ambiguous problems, and building software that is reliable under real‑world production conditions.

What You Will Do

• Design, implement, test, and operate reliable services and product experiences for USM and Control Center.
• Own complex projects end to end: clarify the problem, contribute to technical design, break work into milestones, execute with partner teams, and validate the result in production.
• Build management and observability capabilities for Kafka and Confluent Platform across cloud, on-premises, hybrid, multi‑cluster, and multi‑geography environments.
• Contribute to USM capabilities that provide consistent management, monitoring, security, and operational workflows across environments.
• Improve C3 workflows for customers who require a local control plane, including cluster health, topic and message operations, connector troubleshooting, and other critical day‑two workflows.
• Write clear design documents, participate in architecture and code reviews, and make pragmatic technical decisions that balance delivery speed, reliability, maintainability, and long‑term architecture.
• Diagnose and resolve production issues using logs, metrics, traces, and systematic root‑cause analysis; participate in on‑call and operational readiness practices.
• Collaborate with product management, engineering, design, support, and Confluent Cloud teams to understand customer needs and deliver high‑quality outcomes.
• Raise engineering quality through automated testing, safe rollout practices, documentation, observability, and improvements to development and release processes.
• Provide technical guidance and constructive feedback to other engineers, helping the team grow through reviews, pairing, and hands‑on collaboration.

Preferred Education

Master's Degree

Required Technical And Professional Expertise

• 5+ years of professional software development experience building and operating production systems.
• Strong programming and problem‑solving skills in a language such as Java, Go, C/C++, or Python.
• Experience designing, implementing, and debugging distributed systems or backend services.
• A solid understanding of systems fundamentals, including networking, storage, operating systems, concurrency, and performance.
• Experience taking ownership of complex projects and delivering them with high quality and predictable execution.
• Experience writing technical designs and communicating trade‑offs clearly with engineers and cross‑functional partners.
• Strong engineering practices, including code reviews, automated testing, observability, documentation, and operational readiness.
• Ability to investigate complex technical issues, identify root causes, and drive durable fixes rather than short‑term mitigations.
• Willingness to participate in on‑call rotations and handle customer‑impacting issues with urgency, patience, and sound judgment.
• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

Preferred Technical And Professional Experience

• Experience with Apache Kafka, Kafka Connect, Confluent Platform, or other streaming and data infrastructure technologies.
• Experience building management, monitoring, observability, troubleshooting, or operational tooling for large‑scale systems.
• Experience with Kubernetes, cloud infrastructure, hybrid architectures, or infrastructure automation.
• Familiarity with authorization, RBAC, security, auditability, or compliance requirements for enterprise platforms.
• Experience working on products that span cloud control planes and customer‑managed or on‑premises components.
• Contributions to open‑source projects or interest in technical writing, presentations, and developer advocacy.