Senior Backend Engineer, Cloud & Networking

IBM; Lowell (MA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

IBM Software is seeking software engineers to grow our Traffic team, building and managing Confluent Cloud networking services. You will design and operate backend services in a cloud-native environment, owning features end-to-end and collaborating across platform teams.

Ideal candidates have 2–5 years in distributed backend systems, cloud infra, and API-first design. You’ll work with Go/Java/C++, Kubernetes, and public cloud, contributing to reliability and scale in a rapidly evolving product

Qualifications

• 2-5 years of experience building distributed backend systems in production.
• Experience with cloud infrastructure is a strong plus.
• Proficiency in Go, Java, or C++, with ability to work in others as needed.
• Experience with public cloud and Kubernetes/containerized environments.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and operate backend services that are secure, reliable, and scalable in a cloud-native environment.
• Own features and projects end to end: requirements, design, implementation, testing, rollout, and ongoing improvements.
• Work with distributed systems and microservices, with a focus on performance, resiliency, and clear API contracts.
• Contribute to service reliability and operations, including monitoring, alerting, and on-call participation where applicable.
• Collaborate with partner teams on architecture, data modeling, and integration points across Confluent’s platform.
• Write clean, well-tested, and well-documented code, and participate in code reviews that raise the bar for the team.
• Help improve engineering practices, tools, and automation to make it easier and safer to ship code.
• Contribute to a healthy team culture through clear communication, inclusive collaboration, and a willingness to learn and teach.

Skills

Go

Java

C++

Distributed Systems

Cloud Infrastructure

Kubernetes

API Design

Networking

Education

Master's Degree in CS or related field

BS/MS in computer science or related field

Job description

IBM Software is seeking software engineers to grow our Traffic team, building and managing Confluent Cloud networking services. You will design and operate backend services in a cloud-native environment, owning features end-to-end and collaborating across platform teams.

Ideal candidates have 2–5 years in distributed backend systems, cloud infra, and API-first design. You’ll work with Go/Java/C++, Kubernetes, and public cloud, contributing to reliability and scale in a rapidly evolving product