Staff Software Engineer – Infrastructure Storage

Lambda

Staff Software Engineer for AI cloud infrastructure focusing on storage protocol solutions. Designing and maintaining systems that serve massive datasets at the speeds demanded by modern clustered GPUs.

Posted 6/26/2026full-timeSan Francisco • California • 🇺🇸 United StatesLead💰 $314,000 - $465,000 per yearWebsite

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

CloudDistributed SystemsGoNFSRust

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Set technical direction for storage software architecture across the Infrastructure Engineering organization, influencing decisions that span petabyte-scale deployments.
Author and review design documents for new storage systems, protocols, and integrations; raise the technical bar across the team.
Mentor and develop senior engineers, providing guidance on systems design, debugging complex distributed systems issues, and navigating technical tradeoffs.
Serve as a technical anchor for cross-functional initiatives involving storage, networking, compute, and control plane teams.
Design, develop, and maintain high-performance storage systems software with a focus on performance, scalability, reliability, and operational simplicity.
Collaborate with hardware and system architects to integrate software with storage solutions including NVMe, GPU-direct storage, and DPU-accelerated data paths.
Troubleshoot and resolve complex issues in production data center environments, including performance regressions, protocol mismatches, and hardware failures.
Contribute across the full software development lifecycle — from requirements gathering and system design through deployment, monitoring, and long-term maintenance.

Requirements

What you’ll need

10+ years of experience in storage systems engineering, with at least 5 years in a technical lead or Staff+ IC role.
Proven track record designing and operating storage infrastructure at scale (multi-petabyte environments preferred) in production data center or cloud settings.
Experience leading technical projects end-to-end, from architecture through delivery with cross-functional stakeholders.
Background working in high-performance computing, AI/ML infrastructure, or large-scale cloud storage environments.
Strong proficiency in one or more low-level systems programming languages: C, C++, Rust, or Go.
Demonstrated ability to write high-performance, concurrent, production-grade systems code and conduct thorough code reviews.
Familiarity with DPDK and SPDK and their role in building high-performance, kernel-bypass storage and networking data paths.
Deep hands-on experience with two or more storage protocols: object (S3 or similar), block (iSCSI, Fibre Channel, NVMe-oF), or file (NFS, SMB, Lustre, DAOS).
Experience profiling and tuning storage systems for throughput, latency, and IOPS under real production workloads.
Comfort working in a physical data center environment — understanding rack-scale infrastructure, storage array hardware, cabling, and failure domains.

Benefits

Comp & perks

We offer generous cash & equity compensation
Health, dental, and vision coverage for you and your dependents
Wellness and commuter stipends for select roles
401k Plan with 2% company match (USA employees)
Flexible paid time off plan that we all actually use

ATS Keywords

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills & Tools

CC++RustGoDPDKSPDKS3iSCSIFibre ChannelNVMe-oF

Soft Skills

mentoringsystems designdebuggingtechnical leadershipcollaborationproblem-solvingcommunicationguidanceinfluencingproject management