Role Overview We are seeking a Senior Staff Storage Backend Engineer to design and optimize the next generation of high-performance distributed storage systems. This role focuses on building the core I/O path, improving scalability, reliability, and software quality across large-scale storage clusters. The ideal candidate has deep expertise in C/C++, distributed systems, storage architecture, and performance optimization, with a proven track record of building highly available, low-latency infrastructure. Key Responsibilities Storage Architecture & Development • Design, develop, and optimize high-performance storage I/O paths for extreme throughput, low latency, and high concurrency. • Build and improve distributed storage components, including erasure coding, data protection, recovery, and data layout algorithms. • Develop scalable concurrency models, locking mechanisms, and fault-tolerant designs. Performance & Scalability • Analyze and optimize storage performance across CPU, memory, caching, scheduling, and data movement paths. • Drive profiling, benchmarking, and performance tuning across multi-node, multi-device environments. • Design asynchronous, event-driven architectures supporting AI workloads, high-speed data pipelines, and real-time analytics. Technical Leadership • Serve as a technical leader for the IO Path team, driving architecture decisions, design reviews, code reviews, and complex debugging efforts. • Partner with engineering leadership to define technical strategy, evaluate new technologies, and influence the product roadmap. • Mentor engineers and promote engineering excellence through strong engineering practices and rigorous technical reviews. Quality & Cross-Functional Collaboration • Collaborate with QE, storage, networking, performance, field, and support teams to deliver reliable enterprise-class software. • Partner with QE to identify quality gaps, improve validation strategies, and ensure robust coverage of complex distributed storage scenarios. • Debug complex customer and system issues and translate learnings into product improvements. • Influence CI/CD pipelines, automation frameworks, and release processes to enable scalable and reliable software delivery. Required Qualifications • 15+ years of experience developing large-scale systems software using C/C++. • 10+ years of hands-on experience designing and developing storage systems, distributed storage platforms, or high-performance I/O subsystems. • Deep understanding of storage architecture, I/O optimization, memory management, caching, scheduling, and data path design. • Experience with distributed storage concepts, including erasure coding, replication, recovery, and fault tolerance. • Hands-on experience with SPDK or similar high-performance user-space storage frameworks. • Strong knowledge of concurrency, synchronization, and distributed systems design. • Expertise in performance analysis, profiling, debugging, and system optimization. Preferred Qualifications • Experience with high-performance computing (HPC), AI infrastructure, or large-scale storage platforms. • Experience with distributed file systems, object storage, or hybrid storage architectures. • Knowledge of NVMe-oF, RDMA, and high-speed networking technologies. • Experience building observability, monitoring, and self-healing infrastructure. • Familiarity with containerized workloads and cluster orchestration.