Lead Systems Software Engineer - Object Storage

Quantum; Centennial (CO); Hybrid; USD 160,000 - 200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health plan options

401(k) matching

Employee Stock Purchase Plan

Job summary

Quantum is seeking a technical leader to drive the Centennial object storage team. You will balance hands-on coding with setting architectural direction across the data path, durability, S3, and data movement components.

You’ll design, implement, and optimize high-performance storage systems, mentor engineers, and collaborate with the engineering and product teams. A strong background in distributed systems and S3-compatible APIs is required, along with a willingness to work in our Centennial,

Qualifications

• 10+ years of software development using Go, Python, C, C++, or Rust (or equivalent systems-level expertise).
• Experience with distributed systems and high-performance storage software design.
• Strong Linux experience, including systems programming, debugging, profiling, and performance analysis.
• Solid understanding of concurrency, synchronization, locking, asynchronous programming, and memory management in performance-sensitive software.
• Understanding of cloud and enterprise storage concepts and the characteristics of storage media (HDD, SSD, NVMe, tape).
• Experience with object storage or S3-compatible APIs.
• Demonstrated technical leadership of a team or significant engineering workstream.
• Strong communication skills and collaboration across teams, including with ActiveScale engineering teams in Belgium.
• This is a hybrid role, with in-office work at Centennial, CO Tuesday through Thursday.

Responsibilities

• Act as the technical lead for the Centennial object storage team while remaining hands-on.
• Lead technical direction and drive architectural decisions across ownership areas (data path, durability, S3, data movement).
• Design and build critical components, lead design and code reviews, mentor engineers, and ensure automated testing and CI coverage for critical changes.
• Partner with the Software Engineering Manager / Product Owner on scope, sequencing, risk, and delivery.
• Design, implement, and optimize ActiveScale data path features handling S3 requests to durable storage across NVMe, HDD, and tape.
• Improve latency, throughput, scalability, and reliability of the I/O pipeline for exabyte-scale deployments via profiling and debugging.
• Own complex durability and data-placement work (two-dimensional erasure coding) and ensure correctness under failures.
• Analyze and optimize concurrency, throughput, and fault tolerance across request and storage paths.
• Drive data movement systems moving data from NVMe to HDD to tape and evolve internal APIs and services.

Skills

Go

Python

C/C++

Rust

Distributed systems

Linux systems programming

Tools

REST

gRPC

Thrift

S3 APIs

OCaml (optional)

Job description

Key Responsibilities - Technical Leadership

• Act as the technical lead for the Centennial object storage team while remaining substantially hands-on.
• Lead technical direction and drive key architectural decisions across the team's areas of ownership, including the data path, durability, S3, and data movement.
• Design and build critical components, lead design and code reviews, help engineers solve complex systems problems, and ensure appropriate automated testing and CI coverage for critical changes.
• Mentor engineers and develop technical ownership across the team.
• Partner with the Software Engineering Manager / Product Owner on scope, sequencing, technical risk, and delivery.

Object Storage Data Path & S3

• Design, implement, and optimize features in the ActiveScale data path, handling the flow from incoming S3 requests to durable storage across NVMe, HDD, and tape.
• Implement and extend the S3 API, ensuring correct protocol behavior and efficient request handling.
• Improve latency, throughput, scalability, and reliability of the I/O pipeline for exabyte-scale deployments using Linux profiling and systems debugging.

Durability, Data Placement & Resilience

• Own complex durability and data-placement work, including two-dimensional erasure coding, and ensure correctness under failures such as node loss, disk faults, partial writes, and network partitions.
• Analyze and optimize concurrency, throughput, and fault tolerance across the request and storage paths.

Scalability & Data Movement

• Design and improve systems that move and tier data from high-performance NVMe through HDD to the tape cold-storage tier (ActiveScale Cold Storage).
• Drive the evolution of internal APIs, services, and interfaces that support the data path and data mover.

Required Qualifications

• 10+ years of software development experience using Go, Python, C, C++, or Rust (or equivalent systems-level expertise), with a willingness to learn additional languages.
• Strong experience with distributed systems and high-performance storage software design.
• Strong Linux experience, including systems programming, debugging, profiling, and performance analysis of complex systems.
• Solid understanding of concurrency, synchronization, locking, asynchronous programming, and memory management in performance-sensitive software.
• Understanding of cloud and enterprise storage concepts and the characteristics of storage media such as HDD, SSD, NVMe, and tape.
• Experience with object storage or S3-compatible APIs.
• Demonstrated technical leadership of a team or significant engineering workstream.
• Strong communication skills and ability to collaborate across teams, including collaboration with the established ActiveScale engineering teams in Belgium.
• This is a hybrid role, with in-office work at our Centennial, CO office Tuesday through Thursday.

Preferred / Nice-to-Have Skills

• Experience with the Linux I/O subsystem and networking.
• Knowledge of erasure coding principles.
• Experience with storage protocols and clustering design and development.
• Experience with REST, gRPC, or Thrift.
• Experience with Amazon S3 APIs, SDKs, and tools.
• Familiarity with OCaml is welcome but not required; parts of the existing ActiveScale codebase are written in it.

• Quantum provides a diverse portfolio of health plans for medical and prescription, dental, vision, life, disability, and supplemental medical insurance options.
• We also support our team members' efforts to develop and maintain a healthy lifestyle through reimbursement and educational programs.
• Quantum offers a company-matched 401(k) plan to help employees save for retirement in a tax-advantaged way.
• We also have an Employee Stock Purchase Program for purchasing Quantum stock at a discounted rate.

Anticipated Salary Range: $160,000 to $200,000 for qualified applicants.

The above pay range represents Quantum's good faith and reasonable estimate of possible compensation at the time of posting. Pay within the range will be based on a variety of factors, including but not limited to, relevant experience, knowledge/education, skills/abilities, internal equity, and budgetary considerations.