Principal Engineer I

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:

The Stream Processing & Analytics (SPA) team has the vision to build an elastic, reliable, durable, cost-effective, and performant stream processing engine that smoothly works with the existing Confluent Cloud products. The Apache Flink-based stream processing engine is at the heart of innovations that would unlock the next generation of use cases for Confluent Cloud, with the ability to impact the company’s top and bottom line.

This Principal Engineer role is critical in defining and executing the long-term vision around a scalable, efficient, resilient and true cloud native data stream processor, including initiatives enabling autoscaling and limitless state management, ensuring a zero-knob and worry-free experience for our users and customers by providing the right amount of stream processing at any given point in time, allowing customers to focus on building their use case without managing infrastructure complexities.

What You Will Do:

• Architect and Drive Vision: Define, maintain, and execute the technical vision and roadmap for scheduling and deployment of Flink, including autoscaling and managing state, ensuring alignment with Confluent Cloud's strategic goals and customer needs.

• Technical Leadership: Provide technical leadership and guidance to the team, setting high standards for design, development, and operational excellence of highly performant, scalable, reliable, and resilient distributed systems.

• Complex Project Ownership: Independently drive the architecture, design, and execution of complex, cross-functional software projects from inception to production, with a strong focus on quality, reliability, and business impact.

• Open Source Contributions & Strategy: Lead and significantly contribute to open-source software, especially Apache Flink and related stream processing technologies, influencing the community and driving business impact through strategic contributions.

• Advanced Troubleshooting & Operational Excellence: Act as a subject matter expert for troubleshooting and improving operations for complex, large-scale technical stacks spanning all three major clouds (AWS, Azure, GCP), proactively identifying and addressing systemic issues.

• Mentorship and Growth: Mentor and coach junior and mid-level engineers, fostering a culture of technical excellence, continuous learning, and innovation within the team.

What You Will Bring:

• Deep Expertise: BS, MS, or PhD in computer science or a related field, or equivalent work experience, with 12+ years of relevant experience in stream processing and distributed systems.

• Architectural Acumen: Demonstrated strong fundamentals and extensive experience in the architecture, design, and development of large-scale distributed systems.

• Cloud Native Leadership: Expert-level understanding of cloud engineering principles, including experience building and operating mission-critical systems across multiple public cloud environments.

• Strategic Influence: A self-starter with proven ability to lead and influence technical direction within and across teams, driving complex initiatives to successful completion.

• Polyglot Proficiency: Proficiency in Go, Java, or Scala, or Rust with a strong ability to contribute to and lead development in these languages.

What Gives You an Edge:

• Specialized Distributed Systems Knowledge: A strong background in distributed storage systems, databases, or high-throughput messaging systems.

• Cloud & Kubernetes Expertise: Extensive experience with public clouds (AWS, Azure, or GCP) and hands-on experience designing and operating Kubernetes operators for distributed applications.

• Significant Open Source Leadership: Recognized contributions and leadership in open-source projects, particularly in the stream processing domain (especially Apache Flink), demonstrating a track record of driving significant community impact.

• Experience with State Management: Deep expertise in the design, implementation, and optimization of large-scale, fault-tolerant state management systems.

• Experience with implementing Key Value stores or LSM tree based systems: You have expertise in the internals of modern K/V stores or storage engines like SlateDB or RocksDB.

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.