Senior Staff Storage Engineer

DDN; Sacramento (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

DDN is seeking a Senior Staff Storage Backend Engineer to design and optimize the next generation of high-performance distributed storage systems. This role focuses on the core I/O path, improving scalability, reliability, and software quality across large-scale storage clusters.

The ideal candidate has deep expertise in C/C++, distributed systems, and storage architecture, with a track record of building highly available, low-latency infrastructure and leadership for IO Path initiatives.

Qualifications

• 15+ years of experience developing large-scale systems software using C/C++.
• 10+ years of hands-on experience designing and developing storage systems, distributed storage platforms, or high-performance I/O subsystems.
• Deep understanding of storage architecture, I/O optimization, memory management, caching, scheduling, and data path design.
• Experience with distributed storage concepts, including erasure coding, replication, recovery, and fault tolerance.
• Hands-on experience with SPDK or similar high-performance user-space storage frameworks.
• Strong knowledge of concurrency, synchronization, and distributed systems design.
• Expertise in performance analysis, profiling, debugging, and system optimization.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and optimize high-performance storage I/O paths for extreme throughput, low latency, and high concurrency.
• Build and improve distributed storage components, including erasure coding, data protection, recovery, and data layout algorithms.
• Develop scalable concurrency models, locking mechanisms, and fault-tolerant designs.
• Collaborate with QE and performance teams to validate reliability and scalability across clusters.
• Mentor engineers and promote engineering excellence through rigorous reviews and best practices.

Skills

C/C++

Distributed systems

Storage architecture

Performance optimization

SPDK

I/O path design

Concurrency

Profiling

Debugging

Leadership

Tools

SPDK

Job description

Role Overview

We are seeking a Senior Staff Storage Backend Engineer to design and optimize the next generation of high-performance distributed storage systems. This role focuses on building the core I/O path, improving scalability, reliability, and software quality across large-scale storage clusters.

Role Overview

We are seeking a Senior Staff Storage Backend Engineer to design and optimize the next generation of high-performance distributed storage systems. This role focuses on building the core I/O path, improving scalability, reliability, and software quality across large-scale storage clusters. The ideal candidate has deep expertise in C/C++, distributed systems, storage architecture, and performance optimization, with a proven track record of building highly available, low-latency infrastructure.

Key Responsibilities

Storage Architecture & Development

• Design, develop, and optimize high-performance storage I/O paths for extreme throughput, low latency, and high concurrency.
• Build and improve distributed storage components, including erasure coding, data protection, recovery, and data layout algorithms.
• Develop scalable concurrency models, locking mechanisms, and fault-tolerant designs.

Performance & Scalability

• Analyze and optimize storage performance across CPU, memory, caching, scheduling, and data movement paths.
• Drive profiling, benchmarking, and performance tuning across multi-node, multi-device environments.
• Design asynchronous, event-driven architectures supporting AI workloads, high-speed data pipelines, and real-time analytics.

Technical Leadership

• Serve as a technical leader for the IO Path team, driving architecture decisions, design reviews, code reviews, and complex debugging efforts.
• Partner with engineering leadership to define technical strategy, evaluate new technologies, and influence the product roadmap.
• Mentor engineers and promote engineering excellence through strong engineering practices and rigorous technical reviews.

Quality & Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Collaborate with QE, storage, networking, performance, field, and support teams to deliver reliable enterprise-class software.
• Partner with QE to identify quality gaps, improve validation strategies, and ensure robust coverage of complex distributed storage scenarios.
• Debug complex customer and system issues and translate learnings into product improvements.
• Influence CI/CD pipelines, automation frameworks, and release processes to enable scalable and reliable software delivery.

Required Qualifications

• 15+ years of experience developing large-scale systems software using C/C++.
• 10+ years of hands-on experience designing and developing storage systems, distributed storage platforms, or high-performance I/O subsystems.
• Deep understanding of storage architecture, I/O optimization, memory management, caching, scheduling, and data path design.
• Experience with distributed storage concepts, including erasure coding, replication, recovery, and fault tolerance.
• Hands-on experience with SPDK or similar high-performance user-space storage frameworks.
• Strong knowledge of concurrency, synchronization, and distributed systems design.
• Expertise in performance analysis, profiling, debugging, and system optimization.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with high-performance computing (HPC), AI infrastructure, or large-scale storage platforms.
• Experience with distributed file systems, object storage, or hybrid storage architectures.
• Knowledge of NVMe-oF, RDMA, and high-speed networking technologies.
• Experience building observability, monitoring, and self-healing infrastructure.
• Familiarity with containerized workloads and cluster orchestration.