Principal Engineer, Stream Governance & Metadata

IBM; Rochester (MN); On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

IBM Software seeks a Principal Engineer to lead the architecture of large-scale streaming governance systems, shaping schemas, metadata, and data policies across IBM’s platform to ensure reliability and low-latency real-time processing.

You will own domain-level technical direction, mentor senior engineers, and collaborate with executives, product leaders, and open-source communities to advance IBM's streaming capabilities at scale.

Qualifications

• Master's degree in a relevant field.
• Proven track record leading large-scale distributed systems.
• Experience with data catalogs, metadata, or governance ecosystems.
• Ability to influence executives and stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Define and drive company-level technical strategy for governance systems.
• Architect metadata management with low-latency lookups.
• Design data protection capabilities including encryption and access control.
• Build and maintain highly available, multi-tenant infrastructure.
• Establish engineering standards and architectural patterns.
• Mentor senior engineers and foster open-source contribution.
• Collaborate with executives and product leadership across platforms.
• Represent Confluent externally through talks and thought leadership.

Skills

Tech leadership

Distributed systems

Streaming architecture

Strategic influence

Executive collaboration

Open-source

Mentorship

Cloud-native

Data governance

Education

Master's Degree

Tools

Cloud platforms

Job description

IBM Software seeks a Principal Engineer to lead the architecture of large-scale streaming governance systems, shaping schemas, metadata, and data policies across IBM’s platform to ensure reliability and low-latency real-time processing.

You will own domain-level technical direction, mentor senior engineers, and collaborate with executives, product leaders, and open-source communities to advance IBM's streaming capabilities at scale.