Sr. Staff Software Engineer

DataDirect Networks (DDN) is a global market leader in AI and multi-cloud data management at scale, known for its innovative data intelligence platform. The Sr. Staff Software Engineer will lead the design and development of next-generation storage infrastructure, architecting scalable solutions that support large-scale data-intensive workloads while collaborating closely with cross-functional teams.

Responsibilities:

• Lead the end-to-end design and implementation of large-scale storage systems, including architecture reviews, system design documents, and technical roadmaps
• Design and optimize distributed systems with a focus on high availability, fault tolerance, scalability, and performance
• Drive innovation in storage technologies, including parallel filesystems and/or object storage systems
• Collaborate with product managers, infrastructure teams, and other engineers to define requirements and deliver robust, production-ready solutions
• Mentor senior and junior engineers, conduct code and design reviews, and foster best practices in software engineering
• Troubleshoot complex production issues in distributed environments and implement long-term preventive solutions
• Contribute to open-source projects or internal tools that advance the state of storage and distributed systems
• Stay current with industry trends and evaluate emerging technologies for adoption

Requirements:

• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience, with at least 5 years in a Senior, Staff or principal role focused on backend or infrastructure systems
• Proven expertise in system design, including the ability to create scalable, maintainable architectures for complex distributed systems
• Deep understanding of distributed systems principles (consistency models, CAP theorem, consensus protocols, partitioning, replication, etc.)
• Strong experience building or operating high-availability systems in production environments
• Hands-on experience with storage technologies: Parallel filesystems (e.g., Lustre, GPFS/IBM Spectrum Scale, BeeGFS) and/or Object storage systems (e.g., Ceph, S3-compatible APIs, MinIO, OpenStack Swift)
• Proficiency in one or more management/orchestration frameworks (e.g., Kubernetes, Slurm, Mesos, or similar resource management systems)
• Strong programming skills in Rust, C++, Go, or Java (Rust strongly preferred)
• Excellent communication skills with a track record of influencing technical direction across teams
• Experience leading large-scale projects from conception through deployment and operations
• Experience in High Performance Computing (HPC) environments, including workload schedulers, burst buffers, or scientific computing storage workflows
• Contributions to open-source storage projects (e.g., Ceph, Lustre)
• Familiarity with cloud-native storage solutions and multi-cloud architectures
• Background in performance tuning and benchmarking of storage systems at scale
• Experience with data durability, erasure coding, or tiered storage strategies