Staff Cloud Networking Engineer - Data Plane

IBM; Poughkeepsie (AR); Remote; USD 150,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

IBM Software is seeking software engineers to grow the Traffic team responsible for the networking fabric of Confluent Cloud. You’ll build and operate high‑performance distributed systems spanning containers and clouds, focusing on performance, security, reliability and cost optimization.

You'll independently drive projects, collaborate across teams, and contribute to open source communities while delivering production impact in a cloud‑native environment.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of cloud infrastructure/cloud networking experience.
• Strong fundamentals in distributed systems design and development.
• Experience building and operating large-scale systems.
• Solid understanding of basic systems operations (storage, network, OS).
• Proficiency in C++, Go, Python, or other statically typed languages.
• Experience with public clouds (AWS, Azure, or GCP).
• Experience building and managing Layer 7 proxies, especially cloud-native proxies such as Envoy.

Responsibilities

• Build the software underpinning the mission-critical Confluent Cloud network data plane platform and architect, design, develop, and operationalize high‑performance, scalable, reliable, and resilient systems.
• Deliver high impact to the business by driving key technical initiatives in networking, cloud infrastructure, and multi-tenancy.
• Independently drive software project execution and technically lead a team of engineers to deliver production impact with a strong focus on quality.
• Build upon open-source software and engage with upstream communities to create business value.
• Troubleshoot complex technical stacks spanning all three clouds, including microservices, containers, and virtualization.

Skills

Cloud infrastructure

Distributed systems

Large-scale systems

Systems operations

C++

Go

Python

Public clouds

Envoy / proxies

Education

Master's degree

Job description

IBM Software is seeking software engineers to grow the Traffic team responsible for the networking fabric of Confluent Cloud. You’ll build and operate high‑performance distributed systems spanning containers and clouds, focusing on performance, security, reliability and cost optimization.

You'll independently drive projects, collaborate across teams, and contribute to open source communities while delivering production impact in a cloud‑native environment.