Staff Software Engineer — Real-Time AI on Streaming Data

IBM; Boston (KY); On-site; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

IBM Software is seeking an experienced backend engineer to design and deliver distributed systems that run AI and inference on real-time data. You will work across services, APIs, and deployment layers to ship reliable, scalable capabilities used by customers globally.

You will own features end-to-end, mentor engineers, and help shape the platform that powers AI on streaming data at scale. Strong collaboration and communication are essential.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of significant experience designing, building, and operating distributed systems or cloud-native backend infrastructure in production.
• Strong working knowledge of Kubernetes and distributed-systems patterns (control loops, API servers, high-scale control planes), plus the fundamentals — containerization, networking, resource isolation.
• Proficiency in at least one of Go, Java, or Python, and the willingness to work across all three.
• A track record of leading cross-team technical work: turning ambiguous requirements into designs others can rally behind.
• Excellent written and verbal communication — you can write a design doc that aligns people who don't report to you.

Responsibilities

• Design and build the backend services (primarily Go, Java, and Python) that run AI and model inference on real-time data.
• Own features end to end — drafting the design, aligning stakeholders inside and outside the team, and driving the decision to a conclusion.
• Make the technical calls on systems that span teams: model lifecycle, inference routing, and agent execution.
• Own the quality of what you ship — code, test coverage, documentation, operability, and rollout safety.
• Make the engineers around you better through code review, design feedback, and being someone the team trusts with ambiguous, cross-cutting work.
• Participate in on-call for the services your team owns, and help keep the team's processes and rituals healthy.

Skills

Distributed systems design

Kubernetes

Go/Java/Python

Cross-team leadership

Technical communication

Education

Master's Degree

Tools

Go

Java

Python

Job description

IBM Software is seeking an experienced backend engineer to design and deliver distributed systems that run AI and inference on real-time data. You will work across services, APIs, and deployment layers to ship reliable, scalable capabilities used by customers globally.

You will own features end-to-end, mentor engineers, and help shape the platform that powers AI on streaming data at scale. Strong collaboration and communication are essential.