Sr Staff Engineer

Data Direct Networks; California (MO); On-site; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Highly Competitive Vacation Plans

Paid Holidays

Bonus Programs

Tuition Reimbursement

Employee Referral Program

Excellent Medical, Dental and Vision

Paid Leave Programs

Anniversary and Recognition Awards

Job summary

Data Direct Networks (DDN) is seeking a Sr Staff Engineer – Data Path to design, develop, and optimize the data path within a distributed storage and data services platform. You will focus on scalable, low-latency data movement and work hands-on across the stack as a technical leader.

You will collaborate with cross-functional teams and mentors others while shaping architecture, performance, and reliability for enterprise-scale systems.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field.
• 12+ years of experience in systems software, distributed systems, or infrastructure engineering.
• Strong experience designing and implementing performance-critical software components.
• Proficiency in C/C++ or similar systems programming languages.
• Solid understanding of operating systems fundamentals, concurrency, memory management, and networking concepts.
• Proven ability to work independently on complex technical problems and influence system‑level outcomes.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and optimize core data path components in large-scale, distributed systems.
• Contribute to system architecture decisions affecting performance, throughput, latency, and resource utilization.
• Develop high-quality, maintainable code for performance-critical paths, primarily in systems‑level languages (e.g., C/C++).
• Analyze and optimize data movement across CPU, memory, storage, and network layers.
• Identify performance bottlenecks and drive solutions through profiling, benchmarking, and tuning.
• Establish performance baselines and contribute to regression detection and prevention strategies.
• Act as a technical authority within the data path domain, influencing designs across teams.
• Lead design reviews and provide guidance on complex technical challenges.
• Mentor senior and mid‑level engineers on systems design, performance engineering, and best practices.

Skills

C/C++

Systems programming

Performance optimization

Distributed systems

Concurrency

Operating systems

Networking concepts

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or related field

Job description

We are on our way to being the first company to power 1 MILLION GPUs and want world-class talent to join our amazing team!

The world is moving faster than ever, and yet, it will never move this slowly again. We are at the forefront of an incredible technological revolution but, at its core, it is fueled by incredible people. People like you.

1,000 Global Employees

11k Happy Customers

16 International Offices

We’re Looking for the Best and Brightest

We are the world’s leading data intelligence platform that reliably accelerates massive datasets for actionable real-time insights. Join our team to help the best and brightest minds tackle the world’s biggest challenges in business, science, medicine, academia and government.

Do What Can’t be Done

For the past 20 years, our team has kept us at the forefront of storage technology and has provided the foundation for enabling researchers to push the limits of “what can be done.”
These innovations take research and discovery to the next level, enabling them to discover cures to disease, observe global warming patterns, model innovative automotive and aerospace designs, discover new sources of energy, make communities safer, and accelerate business results across a wide variety of industries.

DDN Helps Build Your Future, Too

At DDN, we understand our customers’ diverse needs. Whether you’re a data scientist, IT professional, executive, or researcher, our solutions empower you with cutting-edge technology and unparalleled support.

Highly Competitive Vacation Plans

Paid Holidays

Bonus Programs

Tuition Reimbursement

Employee Referral Program

Excellent Medical, Dental and Vision Benefits

Paid Leave Programs

Anniversary and Recognition Awards

Location

Employment Type

Full time

Location Type

On-site

The Sr Staff Engineer – Data Path is a senior individual contributor responsible for designing, developing, and optimizing performance-critical data path components within a distributed storage and data services platform. This role focuses on the efficient movement of data through complex software systems, with an emphasis on scalability, reliability, and low‑latency performance.

As a technical leader within the Infinia Engineering group, this engineer operates with broad architectural influence, partners closely with cross‑functional teams, and drives best practices across the data path stack while remaining hands‑on in design and implementation.

Key Responsibilities

Design, implement, and optimize core data path components in large-scale, distributed systems.

Contribute to system architecture decisions affecting performance, throughput, latency, and resource utilization.

Develop high-quality, maintainable code for performance-critical paths, primarily in systems‑level languages (e.g., C/C++).

Performance & Scalability

Analyze and optimize data movement across CPU, memory, storage, and network layers.

Identify performance bottlenecks and drive solutions through profiling, benchmarking, and tuning.

Establish performance baselines and contribute to regression detection and prevention strategies.

Technical Leadership

Act as a technical authority within the data path domain, influencing designs across teams.

Lead design reviews and provide guidance on complex technical challenges.

Mentor senior and mid‑level engineers on systems design, performance engineering, and best practices.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

Work closely with adjacent engineering teams, including platform, infrastructure, and quality engineering.

Partner with Product Management to ensure technical feasibility and performance considerations are reflected in roadmap planning.

Support downstream teams (e.g., solutions, customer engineering) as a subject matter expert when needed.

Quality & Operational Excellence

Promote best practices in code quality, testing, observability, and documentation.

Participate in incident analysis and resolution related to data path behavior in production environments.

Contribute to long‑term technical strategy and continuous improvement initiatives.

Required Qualifications

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field (or equivalent experience).

12+ years of experience in systems software, distributed systems, or infrastructure engineering.

Strong experience designing and implementing performance-critical software components.

Proficiency in C/C++ or similar systems programming languages.

Solid understanding of operating systems fundamentals, concurrency, memory management, and networking concepts.

Proven ability to work independently on complex technical problems and influence system‑level outcomes.

We pride ourselves on our commitment to delivering tangible and consistent results.

Regional Director of Sales, Middle East and Africa

Let’s Forge a Better Future, Together

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