Confluent - Senior Software Engineer - Kafka

About the job

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

As a Senior Software Engineer on the team, you will focus on advancing key layers of the Realtime Context Engine project, including its multi-tenant, highly available compute infrastructure, and the core components responsible for query execution and background materialization. You will tackle challenges such as developing strategies for efficient execution and at massive scale across all of Confluent Cloud, ensuring high availability and scalability.

What You Will Do:

Query Engine Development: Design and implement innovative strategies for query execution, planning, and caching at massive scale.

Platform Engineering: Build and maintain multi-tenant, highly available infrastructure that powers computational tasks for Lightning tables and the realtime context engine. Ensure that the platform is optimized for scalability, reliability, and resilience, in alignment with organizational objectives.

Cross-Functional Collaboration: Collaborate with product management, design, and other engineering teams to ensure seamless integration of storage features and infrastructure with the broader organization.

Required education

Bachelor's Degree

Preferred education

Master's Degree

Required technical and professional expertise

• Expertise in C++ and/or Rust
• 3-5 years of demonstrated professional work experience building database technologies
• Experience in building and operating large-scale database systems
• Distributed Systems domain experience
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to influence and guide stakeholders at all levels.

Preferred technical and professional experience

• Familiarity with or has experience contributing to the following open-source technologies: Apache Iceberg, Velox, Substrait
• Experience/knowledge with public clouds (AWS, Azure or GCP)
• Computer Science Degree with Specialization in Database Technologies

Job Title

Senior Software Engineer - Confluent

Date posted

16-Oct-2026

Job ID

132719

City / Township / Village

POUGHKEEPSIE, LOWELL, ROCHESTER, TUCSON, RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, Armonk, Boston, Bellevue, Atlanta, San Jose, Dallas, Austin, San Francisco, Seattle

State / Province

Georgia, Minnesota, Texas, New York, North Carolina, Arizona, Washington, Massachusetts, California

Country

United States

Work arrangement

Remote

Area of work

Software Engineering

Employment type

Regular

Contract type

Regular

Projected Minimum Salary per year

207,000.00

Projected Maximum Salary per year

314,640.00

Position type

Professional

Travel required

Some travel may be required based on business demand

Company

(0147) International Business Machines Corporation

Shift

General (daytime)

Is this role a commissionable/sales incentive based position?

No