Staff Software Engineer I - Cloud Compute Platform

Confluent is a company that is revolutionizing how data moves. They are seeking a Staff Software Engineer to be a key technical leader on the Compute Platform team, responsible for building and evolving their cloud-native compute substrate.

Responsibilities:

• Drive the overall technical charter for the Compute Platform, including multi-cluster orchestration, workload placement, and security architecture
• Design and implement platform APIs and Kubernetes operators using Go to support evolving workload requirements
• Work closely with product management and engineering leadership to build and drive the roadmap for Confluent's Compute Platform, enabling new business opportunities across Confluent
• Deliver high-impact initiatives in areas such as workload scheduling, disruption management, network isolation, rolling update strategies, and cross-cluster resource management
• Lead technical design reviews and drive architectural decisions across organizational boundaries
• Mentor and grow other engineers on the team through code reviews, pairing, and technical guidance
• Own operational aspects including availability, reliability, performance monitoring, emergency response, and disaster recovery for our global compute infrastructure

Requirements:

• 8+ years of experience delivering scalable software solutions
• Proven track record of leading the delivery of large-scale, highly available, low-latency systems
• Deep expertise in Kubernetes including controller development, operator patterns, and multi-cluster architectures
• Strong proficiency in Go with experience building production-grade distributed systems
• Experience with multi-tenant platform architectures and security isolation patterns
• Familiarity with gRPC, Protobuf, and API design for internal platform services
• Experience with observability tools and operational excellence practices
• Experience with multi-cloud environments (AWS, GCP, Azure) and cloud-provider integrations
• Track record of providing technical leadership and mentorship
• Track record of working collaboratively across teams including product management, SRE, and other engineering teams
• A smart, humble, and empathetic attitude with a strong sense of teamwork
• Drive and excitement about the challenges of a fast-paced, innovative software environment