Backend Software Engineer - Cloud Platform

We’re not just building better tech. We’re rewriting how data moves and what the world can do with it. With Confluent, data doesn’t sit still. Our platform puts information in motion, streaming in near real-time so companies can react faster, build smarter, and deliver experiences as dynamic as the world around them.

It takes a certain kind of person to join this team. Those who ask hard questions, give honest feedback, and show up for each other. No egos, no solo acts. Just smart, curious humans pushing toward something bigger, together.

One Confluent. One Team. One Data Streaming Platform.

About The Role

Backend engineers at Confluent work on a set of diverse and complex challenges such as building foundational cloud frameworks and services that power all components of the platform in the Cloud. We are building a new multi-tenant, multi-cloud, polyglot, cloud native compute substrate to enable new business opportunities across Confluent Cloud (including Connect, Apache Flink, Kafka and more) . As a senior software engineer, you think strategically and you help drive end-to-end technical delivery from customer experience to scaling internal operations. You are not confined to the status quo and you leverage your expertise in Cloud-native, large-scale distributed systems to help take our platform to the next level. You worry about key operational aspects (availability, reliability, performance, monitoring, emergency response, capacity planning, disaster recovery) of our new Compute Platform, and you make sure that we have a highly-available, resilient and secure offering that our largest customers can rely on.

What You Will Do

• Design, build, and evolve internal infrastructure services written in Go, often as Kubernetes operators, that power the core platform behind Confluent Cloud
• Own the systems that make cloud infrastructure secure, scalable, observable, and reliable, using GitOps, Terraform, Prometheus, Grafana, and a strong foundation in Linux, networking, and public cloud
• Collaborate with engineers across Confluent to enable fast, safe, and autonomous deployment of services through shared platform tooling and best practices
• Take shared responsibility for the full lifecycle of our infrastructure: availability, performance, monitoring, incident response, and capacity planning
• Work on systems at scale, across tens of thousands of instances and multiple regions, with a focus on smooth, fast, and safe operations
• Influence the architecture and operational strategy behind the critical infrastructure that supports all of Confluent’s cloud services
• Participate in a 12-hour, follow-the-sun on-call rotation.
  
  

What You Will Bring

• Strong programming skills, with a focus on reading, debugging, and evolving existing code in languages like Go, Java, or Python
• Solid understanding of systems internals, including filesystems, memory management, network stacks, and kernel behavior
• Hands-on experience running Kubernetes in production, and a deep understanding of containers and modern cloud-native workflows
• Demonstrated experience with at least one major public cloud provider such as AWS, GCP, or Azure
• A strong bias for automation and reproducibility; comfortable working with Kubernetes, GitOps, Terraform, CI/CD pipelines, and observability tools
• Confidence in diagnosing complex systems, handling incidents, and driving continuous improvements to reliability
• A genuine interest in how large-scale systems behave in the real world, and a drive to make them better every day
• Exceptional teamwork, collaboration skills, and the ability to work independently as part of a globally distributed team
• Solid written and verbal communication skills coupled with a strong motivation to
  
  

What Gives You An Edge

• Experience working on developer productivity tooling
• Experience with EKS, GKE or AKS specific Kubernetes distributions
  
  

Ready to build what's next? Let’s get in motion.

Come As You Are

Belonging isn’t a perk here. It’s the baseline. We work across time zones and backgrounds, knowing the best ideas come from different perspectives. And we make space for everyone to lead, grow, and challenge what’s possible.

We’re proud to be 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.