Senior Systems Engineer - Storage & Data Systems

NetApp; San Jose (CA); Hybrid; USD 120,000 - 280,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Life Insurance

Retirement or Pension Plan

Paid Time Off (PTO)

Employee stock purchase plan / RSUs

Job summary

NetApp is hiring experienced Systems Software Engineers to contribute to core storage and data management technologies across ONTAP and related products. You will work on filesystem internals, high-performance storage components, and distributed systems within a collaborative, cross-team environment.

Roles span multiple levels and teams, with responsibilities including designing, implementing, debugging, and profiling code, and driving performance improvements.

Qualifications

• Strong proficiency in C/C++ for systems-level development.
• Understanding of data structures, algorithms, memory management, and concurrency.
• Experience with Unix/Linux systems programming.
• Experience with one or more: filesystems, storage systems, networking/protocol stacks, distributed systems, high-availability architectures.
• Strong debugging and performance analysis skills (gdb, perf, tracing, profiling tools).
• Ability to write maintainable, well-documented code.
• Effective communication and collaboration skills.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and enhance features within ONTAP and related NetApp storage systems.
• Write high-quality C/C++ code that is efficient, reliable, and maintainable.
• Analyze and improve existing code paths for performance, scalability, and correctness.
• Debug complex issues using system-level tools, logs, tracing, and profiling.
• Collaborate across engineering teams, including filesystem, protocol, cloud, hardware, and QA.
• Participate in design and code reviews, contributing to engineering best practices.
• Investigate performance bottlenecks and implement optimizations.
• Support prototyping, research, and feasibility analysis for new ideas and features.
• Communicate design decisions, technical findings, and progress clearly with peers.
• Use AI-assisted tools to accelerate design, development, testing, and troubleshooting.

Skills

C/C++

Filesystems

Storage systems

Networking/protocols

Distributed systems

HA architectures

Kernel subsystems

Unix/Linux

Data structures & algorithms

Debugging & performance analysis

Communication & collaboration

Education

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science/Engineering

Tools

GDB

Perf

Tracing

Profiling tools

Job description

NetApp is hiring experienced Systems Software Engineers to contribute to core storage and data management technologies across ONTAP and related products. You will work on filesystem internals, high-performance storage components, and distributed systems within a collaborative, cross-team environment.

Roles span multiple levels and teams, with responsibilities including designing, implementing, debugging, and profiling code, and driving performance improvements.