Sr. Staff Engineer - Data Path

Job details

Work model

On-site

Salary

Not listed by source

Location

Santa Clara Colocation

Hiring context

How this role compares at DDN

DDN has 96 live roles in MeritLog’s catalog across 9 job families, and 20 of them are in data & analytics. 20 of those listings publish a pay range, a disclosure rate of 21%.

Counted across the job boards MeritLog tracks, at the time this page was served. Pay comparisons use only listings that publish a complete range in the same currency and period.

What the role asks for

Parsed by MeritLog from the employer’s own posting. The full description follows below.

Job description

The Sr. Staff Engineer - Data Path is a senior individual contributor responsible for designing, developing, and optimizing performance-critical data path components within a distributed storage and data services platform. This role focuses on the efficient movement of data through complex software systems, with an emphasis on scalability, reliability, and low-latency performance. As a technical leader within the Infinia Engineering group, this engineer operates with broad architectural influence, partners closely with cross-functional teams, and drives best practices across the data path stack while remaining hands-on in design and implementation.   KEY RESPONSIBILITIES DATA PATH ARCHITECTURE & DEVELOPMENT - Design, implement, and optimize core data path components in large-scale, distributed systems. - Contribute to system architecture decisions affecting performance, throughput, latency, and resource utilization. - Develop high-quality, maintainable code for performance-critical paths, primarily in systems-level languages (e.g., C/C++). PERFORMANCE & SCALABILITY - Analyze and optimize data movement across CPU, memory, storage, and network layers. - Identify performance bottlenecks and drive solutions through profiling, benchmarking, and tuning. - Establish performance baselines and contribute to regression detection and prevention strategies. TECHNICAL LEADERSHIP - Act as a technical authority within the data path domain, influencing designs across teams. - Lead design reviews and provide guidance on complex technical challenges. - Mentor senior and mid-level engineers on systems design, performance engineering, and best practices. CROSS-FUNCTIONAL COLLABORATION - Work closely with adjacent engineering teams, including platform, infrastructure, and quality engineering. - Partner with Product Management to ensure technical feasibility and performance considerations are reflected in roadmap planning. - Support downstream teams (e.g., solutions, customer engineering) as a subject matter expert when needed. QUALITY & OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE - Promote best practices in code quality, testing, observability, and documentation. - Participate in incident analysis and resolution related to data path behavior in production environments. - Contribute to long-term technical strategy and continuous improvement initiatives. REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS - Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field (or equivalent experience). - 12+ years of experience in systems software, distributed systems, or infrastructure engineering. - Strong experience designing and implementing performance-critical software components. - Proficiency in C/C++ or similar systems programming languages. - Solid understanding of operating systems fundamentals, concurrency, memory management, and networking concepts. - Proven ability to work independently on complex technical problems and influence system-level outcomes.