Senior Software Engineer, Confluent

• 5+ years of industry experience designing, building, scaling, and operating backend systems in production
• Deep proficiency in at least one major backend programming language (e.g., Java, Go, C/C++, or Python) and strong fundamentals in data structures, algorithms, and system design
• Hands-on experience with distributed systems, such as event-driven architectures, high-throughput services, or large-scale data pipelines. A strong understanding of consistency, fault tolerance, and performance tradeoffs
• Strong experience running production services in a public cloud (AWS, GCP, or Azure), including containerized workloads (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes)
• Expertise in cloud-native technology, including networking & security, and experience being part of an oncall rotation
• Proven experience in leading and mentoring technical teams
• A track record of technical leadership: driving projects, influencing architecture, and coordinating work across multiple engineers or teams
• Strong communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to align stakeholders, explain complex ideas clearly, and drive decisions
• BS, MS, or PhD in computer science, engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience

Desirable

• As a Senior Software Engineer II at Confluent, you will take ownership of critical backend systems in Stream Governance products that underpin our data streaming platform
• You’ll lead the design and delivery of large-scale, distributed services that must be secure, highly available, and easy to operate across regions and clouds
• The Stream Governance product portfolio is crucial to achieving Confluent’s mission to put event streaming at the heart of every organization
• Our mission is to provide a robust, cloud-native platform that ensures data quality and integrity by standardizing structure and enforcing intelligent rules across every stream
• You will be responsible for delivering critical functionalities like Confluent Schema Registry, Data Contracts, and Policies
• In this role, you will collaborate closely with the team and key stakeholders to design, architect, and develop cloud-native, multi-tenant services for Stream Governance
• You will be responsible for guiding the vision, providing technical leadership, mentoring, and enabling a high-performing engineering team to tackle complex distributed data challenges at scale
• You’ll act as a technical leader: setting direction for projects, making architecture decisions, mentoring engineers, and partnering with cross-functional stakeholders to ship high-impact work
• Develop and architect the cloud-native Stream Governance platform - a multi-tenant, highly available, and scalable service for Kafka and real-time data
• Own and lead the end-to-end design and implementation of complex backend services within a cloud-native, microservices-based environment
• Drive projects from requirements and design through implementation, rollout, and ongoing operation in production
• Make architecture and technical decisions that thoughtfully balance reliability, scalability, performance, and operability
• Solve complicated technical projects with high quality, provide specialized technical guidance to the team, and mentor/support other engineers through code reviews and design reviews
• Evaluate and enhance the efficiency of our platform's technology stack, ensuring we keep pace with industry trends and adopt state-of-the-art solutions
• Take responsibility for developing, managing, and maintaining a mission-critical service with a 99.99 SLA running across 100+ AWS, GCP, and Azure regions
• Partner across engineering and with other key stakeholders to create and execute the overall roadmap for delivering a top-notch Data Streaming Platform
• Contribute to a culture of continuous improvement, inclusive collaboration, and high technical standards