Software Engineer - Confluent
IBM
At IBM Software, we transform client challenges into solutions. Building the world’s leading AI-powered, cloud-native products that shape the future of business and society. Our legacy of innovation creates endless opportunities for IBMers to learn, grow, and make an impact on a global scale. Working in Software means joining a team fueled by curiosity and collaboration. You’ll work with diverse technologies, partners, and industries to design, develop, and deliver solutions that power digital transformation. With a culture that values innovation, growth, and continuous learning, IBM Software places you at the heart of IBM’s product and technology landscape. Here, you’ll have the tools and opportunities to advance your career while creating software that changes the world.
Your Role And Responsibilities
The Hybrid Observability & Management charter includes both Unified Stream Manager (USM) and Confluent Control Center (C3), with a shared goal of delivering a consistent, enterprise-grade management, observability, and security experience across on-prem, cloud, and hybrid Confluent Platform deployments.
As a Software Engineer on this team, you will work on well-defined, scoped pieces of USM or C3, with guidance and mentorship from senior engineers, while learning the fundamentals of building and operating platform software at scale. On the USM side, that means contributing to hybrid-first management and operational capabilities; on the C3 side, it means helping improve cluster health, topic and consumer monitoring, connector visibility, and management workflows. This role is a strong fit for an engineer early in their career who wants to build depth in distributed systems and platform engineering. You'll work closely with experienced engineers to deliver reliable, well-tested software, and grow into owning a specific sub-component of USM or C3 as you build expertise.
- Deliver well-scoped tasks and features on time, with code review and mentorship from senior engineers.
- Contribute to USM capabilities (Agent, Cloud Console) or C3 workflows (cluster health, topic visibility, consumer monitoring, connector status) depending on team roadmap needs.
- Write design one-pagers for your own sub-tasks and incorporate feedback from stakeholders and peers.
- Learn Confluent's engineering practices: coding standards, Dev Prod tooling, release process, and design review process.
- Write tests, fix bugs, and participate in code reviews to build a habit of quality and craftsmanship.
- Help troubleshoot production and customer-facing issues by analyzing logs and metrics, with support from senior teammates.
- Participate in on-call rotation with mentorship, learning to debug and mitigate issues under guidance.
- Take ownership of a specific sub-component of USM or C3 and grow into the go-to person for it.
Master's Degree
Required Technical And Professional Expertise
- 0–2 years of hands-on software development experience (new grads welcome). - Solid fundamentals in data structures, algorithms, concurrency, networking, and operating systems.
- Ability to write clean, maintainable, well-tested code in at least one modern language (Java, Go, or similar)
- Curiosity about distributed systems and how large-scale services like Kafka are designed and operated.
- A self-starter mindset — comfortable asking questions, seeking feedback, and iterating based on code review. - Strong communication skills and willingness to collaborate closely with a small team.
- BS in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience
Nice to Have
- Coursework or projects involving Apache Kafka, distributed systems, or cloud infrastructure.
- Exposure to Kubernetes, Docker, or cloud platforms (AWS/GCP/Azure).
- Contributions to open-source projects. - Interest in observability or platform engineering.