Staff Software Engineer I - SRE

Confluent Inc; India; On-site; INR 1,500,000 - 2,500,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Remote-first work

Robust insurance benefits

Flexible time away

Well-being initiatives

Job summary

A leading data streaming platform provider is seeking a proactive Reliability Engineer for incident management and reliability improvements. The role demands 10+ years in SRE or similar fields, expertise in cloud environments (AWS, GCP, Azure), and strong knowledge of observability tools. You will be responsible for designing reliability improvements, maintaining incident management standards, and coaching teams through best practices. Join a global team that thrives on collaboration and innovation in a remote-first environment.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in SRE, incident management, or reliability engineering.
• Deep expertise with incident management tooling.
• Strong understanding of distributed systems and failure modes at scale.

Responsibilities

• Analyze systemic failure patterns and design improvements.
• Own standards and practices of incident response.
• Develop and deliver training programs for engineering teams.

Skills

SRE expertise

Incident management

Cloud experience (AWS, GCP, Azure)

Observability (metrics, logging, tracing)

Kubernetes and container orchestration

Tools

Rootly

PagerDuty

Jira

Job description

We’re not just building better tech. We’re rewriting how data moves and what the world can do with it. With Confluent, data doesn’t sit still. Our platform puts information in motion, streaming in near real‑time so companies can react faster, build smarter, and deliver experiences as dynamic as the world around them.

It takes a certain kind of person to join this team. Those who ask hard questions, give honest feedback, and show up for each other. No egos, no solo acts. Just smart, curious humans pushing toward something bigger, together.

One Confluent. One Team. One Data Streaming Platform.

About the Role:

Confluent Cloud processes millions of events per second across AWS, GCP, and Azure. When incidents happen in a multi‑cloud streaming platform, they happen at scale—data in motion, exactly‑once semantics, and cascading failure modes that require deep systems thinking. We need an expert‑level engineer who can drive proactive reliability improvements that prevent these incidents before they occur.

This role combines hands‑on technical work with strategic program ownership. You'll spend roughly 75% of your time on engineering: building automation, improving tooling, analyzing systemic failure patterns, and designing reliability improvements. The remaining 25% is teaching and coordination: coaching teams through post‑mortems, training incident commanders, and evolving our incident response practices.

You’ll be part of a global team with follow‑the‑sun coverage, with clean handoffs that keep everyone working sustainable hours. Confluent has 800‑1000 engineers across highly autonomous teams. This role sits within Cloud Architecture and Reliability – Supportability (CAR‑S), a horizontal team that owns reliability standards and tooling across engineering. You’re the person who makes us need incident management less.

What You Will Do:

Proactive Reliability Engineering (~75% of role)

• Analyze systemic failure patterns and design improvements that prevent incident recurrence
• Define and maintain SLO/SLA frameworks; use error budgets to guide reliability investments
• Build tooling and automation to reduce incident response toil and scale team impact
• Own Rootly configuration, workflows, and integrations with PagerDuty, Jira, Confluence, and Slack
• Analyze reliability data to identify systemic improvements; build dashboards that drive action
• Explore AI‑assisted approaches to documentation quality and incident analysis
• Design scalable reliability standards that reduce reactive workload over time.

Incident Management Program (~25% of role)

• Own standards, practices, and continuous improvement of incident response
• Serve as an on‑call Incident Commander for production incidents, including acting as escalation IC when incidents exceed a team’s management chain
• Develop and deliver training programs for engineering teams at all levels
• Coach teams through post‑mortems and on developing actionable corrective actions

Customer Root Cause Analysis (CRCA)

• Edit and review customer‑facing incident documents to ensure quality and clarity
• Drive turnaround SLAs while maintaining technical accuracy
• Ensure clear explanation of what happened, why, and how we’ll prevent recurrence

Cross‑Team Leadership

• Partner with engineering leaders to elevate reliability practices
• Be the expert who teams proactively engage for guidance

What You Will Bring:

10+ years in SRE, incident management, or reliability engineering · Cloud experience with at least one of AWS, GCP, or Azure·

Deep expertise with incident management tooling (Rootly, PagerDuty, or similar platforms)

Strong understanding of distributed systems and failure modes at scale—Kafka/event streaming expertise preferred, or demonstrated rapid mastery of complex systems

Deep experience with observability: metrics, logging, tracing—ability to diagnose complex issues · Kubernetes and container orchestration experience · Understanding of CI/CD pipelines and release processes · Systems thinking: understanding how infrastructure design choices affect failure modes and recovery · Familiarity with SLO/SLA frameworks.

Track record as a trusted advisor across engineering organizations · Experience driving org‑wide process and cultural changes · Strong written communication (design docs, one‑pagers, runbooks) · Post‑mortem facilitation experience · Experience with async collaboration across time zones

Large company experience navigating reliability/incident programs at 500+ engineer organizations·

What Gives You an Edge:

Multi‑cloud experience (minimum 2+ of AWS/GCP/Azure).

Modern CI/CD, GitHub, AI‑assisted workflows—you’ll have the freedom to build what you need

Ready to build what's next? Let’s get in motion.

Come As You Are

Belonging isn’t a perk here. It’s the baseline. We work across time zones and backgrounds, knowing the best ideas come from different perspectives. And we make space for everyone to lead, grow, and challenge what’s possible.

We’re proud to be an equal opportunity workplace. Employment decisions are based on job‑related criteria, without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status, or any other classification protected by law.

Privacy Statement

Confluent is an IBM subsidiary which has been acquired by IBM and will be integrated into the IBM organization. By proceeding with this application, you understand that Confluent will share your personal information with other IBM affiliates involved in your recruitment process, wherever these are located. More Information on how IBM protects your personal information, including the safeguards in case of cross‑border data transfer, are available here.

Global Benefits to Help You Do Your Best Work

Remote‑First Work

Robust Insurance Benefits

Flexible Time Away

The Best Teammates

Open and Honest Culture

Well‑Being and Growth

Leadership Principles Define How we Act

Our Leadership Principles outline a shared set of expectations for how we think and behave at Confluent. They’re an extension of our company values which we all live each day. You can learn more here.

Confluent is Remote‑First

We care about how you work, not where. Confluent is built for flexibility, so we encourage you to apply from anywhere. But we also know that trust and purpose are built face‑to‑face. That’s why we combine remote freedom with in‑person onboarding to jumpstart your journey. It’s the best of both worlds: the autonomy you want with the community you need. Read why we prioritize in‑person onboarding