Staff Engineer - Data Path

About the company

DDN provides high-performance data intelligence and storage platforms that enable rapid, low-latency, high-throughput data access for NVIDIA GPU clusters, accelerating AI, LLM, GenAI, RAG, and HPC workloads.

About this role

DDN is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to join the Data Ocean engineering team and develop high-performance data path software for next-generation AI and enterprise storage platforms. This role focuses on designing, implementing, and optimizing core data path services that enable intelligent caching, object storage integration, metadata management, and efficient data movement across modern storage environments. The ideal candidate is a strong systems engineer with deep C/C++ development expertise, experience building high-performance Linux-based software, and a passion for solving complex storage and distributed systems challenges. This is a hands-on engineering role requiring ownership of design, implementation, debugging, performance optimization, and delivery of production-quality software.   RESPONSIBILITIES Data Path Software Development - Design and implement high-performance data path components for the Data Ocean platform. - Develop intelligent caching capabilities for object storage workloads. - Build scalable services for data movement across object, file, and block storage environments. - Implement metadata management services supporting efficient object tracking, lookup, and on-demand retrieval. - Develop cache management capabilities including quota management, eviction policies, and lifecycle controls. - Optimize data transfer pipelines for throughput, latency, scalability, and reliability. - Analyze, debug, and optimize system performance across large-scale storage workloads. - Develop production-quality C/C++ software for high-performance storage systems. - Design and implement multithreaded, concurrent systems software on Linux platforms. - Work on storage data path components involving caching, metadata handling, I/O processing, and distributed coordination. - Improve scalability, reliability, and performance of core storage services through profiling and optimization. - Troubleshoot complex system issues involving performance, concurrency, and data consistency. - Participate in architecture discussions, technical design reviews, and code reviews. - Collaborate with senior engineers, architects, and cross-functional teams across global engineering locations. - Work closely with QA, performance engineering, and release teams to deliver reliable production software. - Contribute to engineering best practices, automation, and continuous improvement initiatives.   REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS - Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related technical field. - 8+ years of experience developing systems software, storage software, or distributed systems. - Strong expertise in C/C++ programming with experience developing production-grade software. - Strong Linux systems programming experience. - Experience with multithreaded programming, concurrency, synchronization, and performance tuning. - Understanding of storage systems, filesystems, or distributed storage architectures. - Experience working with object storage concepts and APIs, including S3. - Ability to debug complex software issues and optimize performance-critical systems.   PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS - Experience developing distributed storage systems or high-performance data platforms. - Knowledge of filesystem internals, metadata management, and namespace services. - Experience with intelligent caching, data tiering, replication, or data mobility solutions. - Familiarity with storage protocols and networking technologies. - Experience integrating cloud storage with enterprise storage platforms. - Familiarity with AI infrastructure, HPC workloads, or large-scale data processing environments.   WHY JOIN DDN? As a Senior Software Engineer – Data Path, Data Ocean, you will work on foundational storage technologies powering next-generation AI, HPC, and enterprise workloads. You will have the opportunity to design and build high-performance distributed systems software, solve challenging scalability and performance problems, and contribute to a global engineering team delivering advanced data management solutions for modern AI infrastructure.