Confluent - Senior Software Engineer - Cloud Platform

IBM Computing; Atlanta (GA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

IBM is seeking a senior backend engineer to design and implement large-scale cloud-native services. You will own critical backend components, align architecture decisions with reliability, and drive end-to-end delivery across teams.

You will work with Python/Go/Java/C++, containerized in AWS/GCP/Azure, and contribute to observability and operational excellence in a multi-tenant environment.

Qualifications

• 4+ years of backend design, building, and production support.
• Proficient in Python, Go, Java, or C/C++.
• Experience with AWS, GCP, or Azure and container orchestration.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills.
• Experience with observability and incident response.

Responsibilities

• Own and lead the design and implementation of complex backend services and systems in a cloud-native, microservices-based environment.
• Make architecture and technical decisions that balance reliability, scalability, performance, and operability, and clearly communicate the tradeoffs.
• Drive projects end to end: from requirements and design through implementation, rollout, and ongoing operation in production.
• Improve service reliability and operations by defining SLOs/SLAs, strengthening observability, and participating in on call as needed.
• Collaborate across teams to define APIs, integration points, and data models that keep the platform coherent and evolvable.
• Identify and drive platform and productivity improvements (tooling, automation, process) that raise the bar for the broader engineering organization.
• Mentor and support other engineers through code reviews, design reviews, and technical guidance, helping grow the team’s capabilities.
• Contribute to a culture of continuous improvement, inclusive collaboration, and high technical standards.

Skills

Python

Go

Java

C/C++

Cloud-native

Observability

Leadership

Communication

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

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

Confluent is pioneering a fundamentally new category of data infrastructure focused on data in motion. Have you ever found a new favorite series on Netflix, picked up groceries curbside at Walmart, or paid for something using Square? That’s the power of data in motion in action—giving organizations instant access to the massive amounts of data that is constantly flowing throughout their business. At Confluent, we’re building the foundational platform for this new paradigm of data infrastructure. Our cloud-native offering is designed to be the intelligent connective tissue enabling real-time data, from multiple sources, to constantly stream across the organization. With Confluent, organizations can create a central nervous system to innovate and win in a digital-first world.

We’re looking for self-motivated team members who crave a challenge and feel energized to roll up their sleeves and help realize Confluent’s enormous potential. Chart your own path and take healthy risks as we solve big problems together. We value having diverse teams and want you to grow as we grow—whether you’re just starting out in your career or managing a large team, you’ll be amazed at the magnitude of your impact.

About the Role:

The next big goal for Confluent is to make it as easy as possible for anyone to use Confluent’s products, including Kafka, to build their next killer streaming application. We are at the beginning of this journey and are looking for great engineers to come join our world-class team that is passionate about building and running large-scale, multi-tenant distributed systems for customers that expect a very high level of availability.

Backend engineers at Confluent work on a set of diverse and complex challenges such as building foundational cloud frameworks and services that power all components of the platform in the Cloud. We are building a new multi-tenant, multi-cloud, polyglot, cloud native compute substrate to enable new business opportunities across Confluent Cloud (including Connect, Apache Flink, Kafka and more). As a senior software engineer, you think strategically and you help drive end-to-end technical delivery from customer experience to scaling internal operations. You are not confined to the status quo, and you leverage your expertise in Cloud-native, large-scale distributed systems to help take our platform to the next level. You worry about key operational aspects (availability, reliability, performance, monitoring, emergency response, capacity planning, disaster recovery) of our new Compute Platform, and you make sure that we have a highly available, resilient and secure offering that our largest customers can rely on. If you love the hum of big data systems, thinking about how to make them run as smoothly as possible, and want to have a big influence on the architecture plus operational design points of this new product, then you will fit right in.

What You Will Do:

• Own and lead the design and implementation of complex backend services and systems in a cloud-native, microservices-based environment.

• Make architecture and technical decisions that balance reliability, scalability, performance, and operability, and clearly communicate the tradeoffs.

• Drive projects end to end: from requirements and design through implementation, rollout, and ongoing operation in production.

• Improve service reliability and operations by defining SLOs/SLAs, strengthening observability, and participating in on call as needed.

• Collaborate across teams to define APIs, integration points, and data models that keep the platform coherent and evolvable.

• Identify and drive platform and productivity improvements (tooling, automation, process) that raise the bar for the broader engineering organization.

• Mentor and support other engineers through code reviews, design reviews, and technical guidance, helping grow the team’s capabilities.

• Contribute to a culture of continuous improvement, inclusive collaboration, and high technical standards.

Required technical and professional expertise

• 4+ years industry experience designing, building, and supporting backend systems in production with a solid grasp on good software engineering practices such as code reviews, deep focus on quality, and documentation

• Strong knowledge of Python runtime environments (virtual environments, package management, and interpreter configurations).

• Strong programming and algorithmic skills. Proficiency in a major programming language, e.g. Python, Go, C / C++, Java, etc.

• Strong experience running services in a public cloud (AWS, GCP, or Azure), including containers and orchestration (for example, Docker, Kubernetes) and modern cloud native technologies.

• Expertise in other Language Runtimes / VMs (JVM/WASM, etc.) a big plus.

• A track record of technical leadership: driving projects, influencing architecture, and coordinating work across multiple engineers or teams.

• Strong communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to align stakeholders, explain complex ideas clearly, and drive decisions.

• Experience with observability and operational excellence (metrics, logging, tracing, incident response, and postmortems).

IBM is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an equal-opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, caste, genetics, pregnancy, disability, neurodivergence, age, veteran status, or other characteristics. IBM is also committed to compliance with all fair employment practices regarding citizenship and immigration status.