Distinguished Engineer - Hyperscalers

NetApp; San Jose (CA); Hybrid; USD 285,000 - 355,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health Insurance

Life Insurance

Retirement or Pension Plans

Performance-Based Incentives

Job summary

NetApp is seeking a Distinguished Engineer in San Jose, California, to lead technical innovation within the Cloud Business Unit. This key role will involve building and scaling architecture for major cloud services, including AWS and Azure. Candidates should have extensive experience in performance optimization and cloud-native system design.

The ideal candidate will demonstrate leadership skills and the ability to mentor teams while also maintaining a hands-on coding practice. The position offers a hybrid work environment and a competitive compensation package.

Qualifications

• Minimum of 10+ years of experience as a software engineer.
• 4+ years as a senior Principal Engineer leading multiple teams.
• Experience with fault-tolerant, high-scale distributed architecture.

Responsibilities

• Lead definition and design of advanced engineering challenges.
• Foster a culture of learning and best practices.
• Architect modern CI/CD infrastructure.

Skills

Performance optimization

Scalability

Enterprise architecture

Cloud-native applications

Leadership

Communication skills

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

AWS

Azure

Google Cloud

Job description

Own Every Moment at NetApp

At NetApp, your ideas power innovation. We lead in intelligent data infrastructure—delivering unified storage, integrated data services, and solutions that help organizations unlock the full potential of their data, from AI to multicloud.

Job Summary

We are looking for a Distinguished Engineer (DE) reporting into Cloud Business Unit SVP&GM. In this role you will work on building and scaling NetApp architecture and experiences across all three major cloud services—Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud—where NetApp storage is first‑party integrated into each provider. The position is a technical leadership role that requires collaboration with other technical leaders and software engineers across NetApp to drive innovation, engineering excellence, and the design of scalable architectures. The Distinguished Engineer is expected to be a hands‑on practitioner who codes and serves as a role model for the NetApp technical community, devoting 40% or more of their time to producing artifacts such as vision statements, design documents, and source code. Prior experience as a principal or senior principal engineer on geo‑distributed, high‑scale applications or services built on major cloud providers is highly preferred, and experience on storage systems is preferred but not mandatory.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the definition, design, architecture quality, implementation, and delivery of the most advanced, most difficult, most cross‑cutting, and/or most ambiguous challenges spanning the Cloud business unit.
• Operate with independence and act as a force multiplier for the company, delivering on its most complex challenges.
• Foster a culture of learning and experimentation, and advocate for best engineering, QA, and operational practices across the business unit.
• Serve as a technical leader on demanding, cross‑functional engineering projects, deconstructing complex problems into straightforward solutions and understanding system interdependencies and limitations.
• Understand not only the technical and product capabilities but also the nuances of the NetApp cloud business, balancing conflicting stakeholder objectives while building trust and empathy with customers’ needs.
• Architect and build modern CI/CD infrastructure that supports several hundred developers across multiple interconnected deployment pipelines.
• Architect and design modern, cloud‑native QA frameworks and components.
• Assist in the career development of others by coaching and mentoring senior and principal engineers on advanced technical issues.
• Contribute to building intellectual property through patents.

Job Requirements

• Minimum of 10+ years of experience as a software engineer.
• 4+ years of hands‑on experience as a senior Principal Engineer leading multiple engineering teams.
• Expert knowledge in performance, scalability, enterprise system architecture, and engineering best practices.
• Expertise in designing and building large‑scale systems in a multi‑tiered, distributed environment (Service Oriented Architecture).
• Extensive experience building fault‑tolerant and high‑scale distributed architecture on one of the major cloud providers.
• Extensive experience with cloud‑native application or services operations, data management, migration, and security.
• Excellent communication and writing skills, with the ability to effectively engage customers, stakeholders, and the engineering community.
• Proactive and self‑driven, with the ability to work independently and take ownership of initiatives.
• Experience operating and troubleshooting reliable, scalable software systems.
• Experience building fully automated testing frameworks from code check‑in to deployment.
• Proficient in at least one modern programming language such as Java, Typescript, Python, or Ruby.
• Prior experience building services or applications in cloud‑native architectures using AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud.
• Experience with monitoring frameworks such as CloudWatch, Datadog, Grafana, Elastic, or similar.
• Decent understanding of storage architectures, design patterns, and best practices; preferred experience with storage technologies such as RAID, volumes, replication solutions.

Education

Bachelor’s degree in computer science or a related field or equivalent experience.

Compensation

The target salary range for this position is $285,000-355,000. The salary offered will be determined by the candidate’s location, qualifications, experience, and education and may be outside of this range. Final compensation packages are competitive and in line with industry standards, reflecting a variety of factors, and include a comprehensive benefits package. This may cover Health Insurance, Life Insurance, Retirement or Pension Plans, Paid Time Off (PTO), various Leave options, Performance-Based Incentives, employee stock purchase plan, and/or restricted stocks (RSU’s), with all offerings subject to regional variations and governed by local laws, regulations, and company policies. Benefits may vary by country and region, and further details will be provided as part of the recruitment process.

At NetApp, we embrace a hybrid working environment designed to strengthen connection, collaboration, and culture for all employees. This means that most roles will have some level of in‑office and/or in‑person expectations, which will be shared during the recruitment process.

Equal Opportunity Employer

NetApp is firmly committed to Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) and to compliance with all federal, state, and local laws that prohibit employment discrimination based on age, race, color, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, religion, disability or genetic information, pregnancy, protected veteran status, and any other protected classification.