Confluent Senior Software Engineer II - Cloud Compute Platform

About the role

Employer: (0147) International Business Machines Corporation

About Confluent

Confluent is pioneering a fundamentally new category of data infrastructure focused on data in motion. Have you ever found a new favorite series on Netflix, picked up groceries curbside at Walmart, or paid for something using Square? That's the power of data in motion in action—giving organizations instant access to the massive amounts of data that is constantly flowing throughout their business.At Confluent, we're building the foundational platform for this new paradigm of data infrastructure. Our cloud-native offering is designed to be the intelligent connective tissue enabling real-time data, from multiple sources, to constantly stream across the organization. With Confluent, organizations can create a central nervous system to innovate and win in a digital-first world.We're looking for self-motivated team members who crave a challenge and feel energized to roll up their sleeves and help realize Confluent's enormous potential. Chart your own path and take healthy risks as we solve big problems together. We value having diverse teams and want you to grow as we grow—whether you're just starting out in your career or managing a large team, you'll be amazed at the magnitude of your impact.

About the Role

As a Software Engineer on the Compute Platform team, you will be a key technical leader in building and evolving our next-generation, multi-tenant, cloud-native compute substrate that powers all of Confluent Cloud's diverse workloads. Our platform orchestrates workloads across thousands of Kubernetes clusters globally across all cloud service providers, providing a unified abstraction layer for scheduling, lifecycle management, and operational excellence. You'll work on critical systems including:

* Multi-Cluster Workload Orchestration: Build the control plane that manages workload placement, lifecycle, and state across multiple Kubernetes clusters per region

* Platform APIs & Abstractions: Design and evolve APIs that provide clean abstractions for polyglot workload management across diverse compute needs

* Cloud Platform Integration: Build and optimize deep integrations with the broader Confluent Cloud platform for seamless end-to-end operations

* Multi-Tenancy & Security: Implement and enhance workload isolation, network policies, and secure execution environments

* Observability & Operations: Drive operational excellence through monitoring integration, automated health checks, and self-healing capabilities

As a senior technical leader, you think strategically and help drive end-to-end technical delivery from customer experience to scaling internal operations. You leverage your expertise in cloud-native distributed systems to take our platform to the next level while ensuring high availability, reliability, and security for our largest enterprise customers.

What You Will Do

* Own features end to end for the Compute Platform, such as multi-cluster orchestration, workload placement, and security architecture

* Design and implement platform APIs and Kubernetes operators using Go to support evolving workload requirements

* Deliver high-impact initiatives in areas such as workload scheduling, disruption management, network isolation, rolling update strategies, and cross-cluster resource management

* Lead technical design reviews and drive architectural decisions across organizational boundaries

* Mentor and grow other engineers on the team through code reviews, pairing, and technical guidance

* Own operational aspects including availability, reliability, performance monitoring, emergency response, and disaster recovery for our global compute infrastructure