Sr Staff Software Engineer- Performance

DataDirect Networks (DDN) is a global market leader in AI and high-performance data storage innovation. The role of Sr Staff Software Engineer – Performance involves driving performance architecture for large-scale distributed file systems, defining strategies, and leading performance investigations to optimize system-wide behavior.

Responsibilities:

• Define and own performance architecture for data path and I/O path components across distributed file systems
• Lead performance analysis and optimization of large-scale, high-performance, scale-out file systems
• Architect performance-aware designs across CPU, memory, storage, and network layers
• Drive optimization of performance-critical file system code, primarily in C++
• Establish best practices for performance measurement, profiling, benchmarking, and regression detection
• Lead deep-dive investigations into complex, system-wide performance issues
• Influence system architecture with a performance-first mindset
• Mentor senior and staff engineers on performance engineering techniques and methodologies
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to ensure performance goals are met across the stack
• Represent performance considerations in design reviews and long-term roadmap planning

Requirements:

• 12+ years of experience in performance engineering, systems engineering, or distributed systems
• Deep understanding of distributed file systems and scale-out storage architectures
• Expert-level knowledge of data path and I/O path design and optimization
• Strong proficiency in C++ with extensive experience in performance-critical code
• Proven expertise in performance measurement techniques, including profiling, tracing, benchmarking, and custom tooling
• Strong foundation in distributed systems principles, including scalability, concurrency, and fault tolerance
• Demonstrated experience optimizing file system or storage system code for performance at scale
• Experience with high-performance, high-scale-out file systems in production environments
• Experience with kernel-level and user-space I/O stacks
• Deep understanding of modern storage hardware (NVMe, SSDs, RDMA, high-speed networking)
• Experience building or evolving performance frameworks and benchmarking infrastructure
• Background in parallel programming, lock-free or low-contention designs
• Experience influencing architecture across multiple teams or large codebases