Senior Staff Storage Engineer: Kafka & Distributed Storage

IBM; Armonk (NY); On-site; USD 170,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

IBM Software is building Kora Storage, a true managed service for enterprise data streams, emphasizing durability, throughput, and ultra-low latency. As a Senior Staff Software Engineer on the Kora Storage team, you will set technical standards, architect core components, and mentor engineers across the organization to enable scalable, cost-efficient multi-tenant storage at scale.

You will tackle state management, hardware optimization, disk/network I/O, and fault tolerance while collaborating

Qualifications

• 10+ years of backend/infrastructure development experience.
• BS, MS, or PhD in computer science or a related field, or equivalent work experience
• Expertise in statically typed languages (Java, Scala, C/C++, Go)
• Proven experience designing and building large-scale, distributed storage systems.
• Deep knowledge of distributed systems concepts, including fault tolerance, consistency, and scalability.
• Solid understanding at a systems level (disk, network, operating systems, etc).
• Strong leadership skills with a demonstrated ability to mentor and guide engineers to success.

Responsibilities

• Design and develop a highly available, performant, reliable, durable, scalable, and multi-tenant storage engine for Kora.
• Set the standard for engineering excellence and drive end-to-end technical solutions.
• Collaborate with product management, design, and other engineering teams to ensure seamless integration of storage features across the org.
• Mentor engineers across the team and shape long-term technical direction.

Skills

Java

Scala

C/C++

Go

Distributed systems

Leadership

Education

Master's Degree

BS/MS/PhD in CS or related field

Tools

Apache Kafka

Apache Iceberg

Apache Flink

Job description

IBM Software is building Kora Storage, a true managed service for enterprise data streams, emphasizing durability, throughput, and ultra-low latency. As a Senior Staff Software Engineer on the Kora Storage team, you will set technical standards, architect core components, and mentor engineers across the organization to enable scalable, cost-efficient multi-tenant storage at scale.

You will tackle state management, hardware optimization, disk/network I/O, and fault tolerance while collaborating