Staff Software Engineer I - Confluent

Introduction
At IBM Software, we transform client challenges into solutions. Building the world’s leading AI-powered, cloud-native products that shape the future of business and society. Our legacy of innovation creates endless opportunities for IBMers to learn, grow, and make an impact on a global scale. Working in Software means joining a team fueled by curiosity and collaboration. You’ll work with diverse technologies, partners, and industries to design, develop, and deliver solutions that power digital transformation. With a culture that values innovation, growth, and continuous learning, IBM Software places you at the heart of IBM’s product and technology landscape. Here, you’ll have the tools and opportunities to advance your career while creating software that changes the world.
Your role and responsibilities
We are looking for a Staff Software Engineer to work on various features and improvements in the Apache Kafka software. In this role, you will work closely with the Apache community as well as senior engineers on the team to build features, work on Kafka improvements and help review designs.. The features you build will cut across various components in the Kafka software stack including the Clients, Streams, Broker and other backend services. You will contribute to the performance improvements, operational aspects and innovate the stack.

What You Will Do:

As a Staff Software Engineer, you will be a technical leader whose work significantly impacts the product, engineering organization, and customer success.
Collaborate with the Apache Kafka community via KIPs, code contributions, reviews, and technical discussions; represent Confluent’s interests while keeping the broader ecosystem in mind.
Drive projects that have high complexity requiring technical acumen, a high level of judgement and able to deal with ambiguity.
Be a force multiplier and show strong ability to mentor and grow the team with guidance on strong design principles and software architecture.
Insist on high standards for the quality of software the team is developing.
Communicate with product management and engineering leaders on the roadmap, understand the specs and the product interfaces.
Drive operational excellence on reliability improvements, operational events and supportability
Demonstrate strong verbal and written communication skills to influence teams/peers beyond immediate span of control.
Required education
Bachelor's Degree
Preferred education
Master's Degree
Required technical and professional expertise

Experience:

Track record of delivering complex systems projects with large scope (multi quarter design and development) leading a team of engineers, setting direction for projects, working with stakeholders, adept at using AI tools for coding and working backwards from the customers.
4+ years driving staff-level or equivalent technical initiatives across multiple teams or components.

Leadership & Influence:

Demonstrated ability to lead through ambiguity, set direction, and align multiple teams around complex technical plans.
Track record of mentoring senior engineers and enabling others to deliver on high-risk, high-impact projects.
Clear, concise technical communication, both written (design docs, KIPs) and verbal (reviews, cross-team forums).
Preferred technical and professional experience
Prior experience as a committer/PMC or core maintainer on Apache Kafka or a similar project.

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OTHER RELEVANT JOB DETAILS:

For additional information about location requirements, please discuss with the recruiter following submission of your application.
Job Title

Staff Software Engineer:

Job ID
122175
City / Township / Village
Krakow
State / Province
Lesser Poland
Country
Poland
Work arrangement
Remote
Area of work
Software Engineering
Employment type
Regular
Position type
Professional
Travel required
Some travel may be required based on business demand
Company
(0109) IBM Polska Sp. zo.o.
Shift
General (daytime)
Is this role a commissionable/sales incentive based position?
No
Application Info
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