Senior Cassandra Open Source Engineer — Remote/US

NetApp; Waltham (MA); Hybrid; USD 220,000 - 265,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health Insurance

Stock Purchase Plan

Hybrid work environment

Job summary

NetApp Instaclustr seeks a Senior Open Source Software Engineer to lead upstream Cassandra initiatives, from CEP design to release, across one of the world's largest Cassandra deployments. You will co-own core release management, mentor engineers toward committer status, and translate enterprise needs into credible upstream proposals while collaborating with a global, distributed team.

This highly visible role includes up to 10% travel and a hybrid US office setup designed to drive

Qualifications

• 12+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Current Apache Cassandra committer with verifiable upstream track record across patches, reviews, and community standing.
• Expert Java engineering in performance-sensitive, concurrent distributed systems.
• Deep mastery of Cassandra internals in storage/compaction, indexing/SAI, or release management/CI.

Responsibilities

• Lead upstream initiatives in Apache Cassandra from design to release across domains like storage/compaction, indexing/SAI, and releases.
• Provide binding committer reviews on upstream patches and community contributions with technical rigor.
• Co-own Cassandra core release management as part of a rotating committer pool; contribute to ecosystem releases where capacity allows.
• Translate enterprise needs into upstream proposals and CEP-level designs; advise product and field teams on upstream trade-offs.
• Mentor engineers toward committer standing and raise contribution quality through review, testing, and guidance.

Skills

Apache Cassandra

Java

Distributed systems

Open source governance

Education

Bachelor's degree in engineering or related field

Tools

Cassandra Sidecar

GoCQL

Cassandra Drivers

Job description

NetApp Instaclustr seeks a Senior Open Source Software Engineer to lead upstream Cassandra initiatives, from CEP design to release, across one of the world's largest Cassandra deployments. You will co-own core release management, mentor engineers toward committer status, and translate enterprise needs into credible upstream proposals while collaborating with a global, distributed team.

This highly visible role includes up to 10% travel and a hybrid US office setup designed to drive