Staff Software Engineer

Details

Confluent is building a data streaming platform that enables companies to move and process information in near real time.

About the Role

You will help build Confluent Cloud's AI capabilities, enabling customers to bring AI and AI-agent capabilities directly to their real-time data. Customers can run inference and build agents in place on streaming data, as part of the platform they already use to move and process events at scale.

You will own significant portions of the product, including design decisions across the user-facing API, model and agent lifecycle services, the control plane that schedules and runs work, and the serving layer that executes inference. The role requires reasoning across system boundaries, making sound design decisions, and aligning engineers across teams.

Responsibilities

• Design and build backend services, primarily using Go, Java, and Python, that run AI and model inference on real-time data.
• Own features end to end, including drafting designs, aligning internal and external stakeholders, and driving decisions to completion.
• Make technical decisions for systems spanning multiple teams, including model lifecycle, inference routing, and agent execution.
• Own the quality of delivered software, including code, test coverage, documentation, operability, and rollout safety.
• Build reliable production infrastructure that serves live inference.
• Improve the engineers around you through code reviews, design feedback, and leadership on ambiguous, cross-cutting work.
• Participate in on-call for team-owned services.
• Help maintain healthy team processes and rituals.

Requirements

• 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, including control loops, API servers, and high-scale control planes.
• Understanding of containerization, networking, and resource isolation fundamentals.
• Proficiency in at least one of Go, Java, or Python, with willingness to work across all three.
• Experience leading cross-team technical initiatives and turning ambiguous requirements into designs that others can support.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to write design documents that align people outside your reporting structure.

Preferred Qualifications

• Exposure to model serving, LLM or agent infrastructure, or streaming data systems.
• A background in machine learning research or model training is not required; the role focuses on building and operating a platform that serves AI reliably at scale.

Company Information

Confluent is an equal opportunity workplace. Employment decisions are based on job-related criteria without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status, or any other classification protected by law.

Confluent is an IBM subsidiary that has been acquired by IBM and will be integrated into the IBM organization. As part of the recruitment process, Confluent may share applicant personal information with IBM affiliates involved in recruitment.