Staff Software Engineer

This is an incredible opportunity to be part of a company that has been at the forefront of AI and high-performance data storage innovation for over two decades. DataDirect Networks (DDN) is a global market leader renowned for powering many of the world's most demanding AI data centers, in industries ranging from life sciences and healthcare to financial services, autonomous cars, Government, academia, research and manufacturing.

"DDN's A3I solutions are transforming the landscape of AI infrastructure." – IDC

“The real differentiator is DDN. I never hesitate to recommend DDN. DDN is the de facto name for AI Storage in high performance environments” - Marc Hamilton, VP, Solutions Architecture & Engineering | NVIDIA

DDN is the global leader in AI and multi-cloud data management at scale. Our cutting-edge data intelligence platform is designed to accelerate AI workloads, enabling organizations to extract maximum value from their data. With a proven track record of performance, reliability, and scalability, DDN empowers businesses to tackle the most challenging AI and data-intensive workloads with confidence. 

Our success is driven by our unwavering commitment to innovation, customer-centricity, and a team of passionate professionals who bring their expertise and dedication to every project. This is a chance to make a significant impact at a company that is shaping the future of AI and data management. 

Our commitment to innovation, customer success, and market leadership makes this an exciting and rewarding role for a driven professional looking to make a lasting impact in the world of AI and data storage. 

We are looking for a hands-on Senior Staff Software Engineer who will help design and build our Cluster management platform. 

DDN – Infinia engineers come from diverse backgrounds, and we consider them to be in the highest tier of technology game changers globally. They have created, architected and pioneered numerous advancements in data enabling technologies, and delivered groundbreaking ideas which have shaped and transformed the storage industry. 

What will you bring to DDN

• 12+ years of backend development experience, with deep proficiency in Go, C++, or Python, specifically within high-scale distributed systems.
• Specialized Expertise in Access Control: In-depth knowledge of RBAC, ABAC, and Multi-Tenancy models within containerized or orchestrated environments.
• Identity & Infrastructure Security: Practical experience with TLS/mTLS, PKI management, certificate lifecycles, and identity protocols such as OAuth2/OIDC.
• Distributed Systems Foundations: Working knowledge of Consul, etcd, or other key/value stores used for service discovery and maintaining global cluster state.
• Technical Diplomacy: The ability to bridge the gap between high-level security mandates and the practical performance requirements of a storage control plane.
• Global Collaboration: Proven results working with geographically distributed teams, utilizing asynchronous communication (RFCs, design docs) to drive alignment.

What you have achieved…

• Systemic Domain Ownership: A history of taking full responsibility for a mission-critical domain, ensuring its long-term health, documentation, and scalability.
• Experience Building Control Planes: Proven success in developing API servers, controllers, or management layers for storage or compute resources.
• Knowledge Synthesis: A track record of collaborating with long-tenured experts to institutionalize tribal knowledge and turn it into robust, documented system architecture.
• Observability & Hardening: Experience using Prometheus and OpenTelemetry to ensure that identity and control services are visible, performant, and resilient.
• Design Thinking for Infrastructure: The ability to simplify complex user access challenges into elegant, developer-friendly CLI and API experiences.

What will you be doing

• Lead the Access Control Domain: Act as the primary technical authority for user authentication, authorization, and identity logic within our Software Defined Storage solution.
• Drive Architectural Continuity: Partner with senior leadership and domain experts to maintain and evolve our core infrastructure, ensuring a seamless transition of technical responsibilities.
• Collaborate with Security Stakeholders: Work alongside our dedicated security team to implement best-in-class user access controls that meet compliance standards without compromising system speed.
• Mentor and Document: Set the standard for technical excellence by providing expert code reviews, mentoring mid-level engineers, and creating high-fidelity documentation for our identity systems.
• Full-Lifecycle Engineering: Participate in the Scrum model—from initial ideation and prototyping to testing and maintenance—ensuring high regression coverage for sensitive code paths.
• Global Support: Contribute to our team on-call rotation, providing high-level expertise to support our global distributed footprint.

Salary Range for this role: $150,000 - $250,000

Join our dynamic and driven team, where engineering excellence is at the heart of everything we do. We seek individuals who love to challenge themselves and are fueled by curiosity. Here, you'll have the opportunity to work across various areas of the company, thanks to our flat organizational structure that encourages hands-on involvement and direct contributions to our mission. Leadership is earned by those who take initiative and consistently deliver outstanding results, both in their work ethic and deliverables, making strong prioritization skills essential. Additionally, we value strong communication skills in all our engineers and researchers, as they are crucial for the success of our teams and the company as a whole.

Interview Process: After submitting your application, one of our recruiters will review your resume. If your application passes this stage, you will be invited to a 30-minute interview during which a member of our team will ask some basic questions. If you clear the interview, you will enter the main process, which can consist of up to four interviews in total:

• Coding assessment: Often in a language of your choice.
• Systems design: Translate high-level requirements into a scalable, fault-tolerant service (depending on role).
• Real-time problem-solving: Demonstrate practical skills in a live problem-solving session.
• Meet and greet with the wider team.
• Our goal is to finish the main process in 2-3 weeks at most.

DataDirect Networks (DDN) is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender, sex stereotyping, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, protected Veteran Status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.

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