Sr/Staff Lustre Engineer

Data Direct Networks•Raleigh, NC

1d•$150,000 - $250,000

About The Position

This role is for a hands-on Lustre Engineer to help shape the next generation of high-performance, enterprise-ready Lustre capabilities. The ideal candidate is comfortable working in kernel-space C, analyzing performance bottlenecks in large-scale deployments, and collaborating with senior engineers to evolve Lustre architecture for modern infrastructure. This is a chance to work on demanding storage engineering problems by designing, building, optimizing, and upstreaming features within the Lustre codebase.

Requirements

7+ years of progressive, hands-on Lustre software development experience
A strong track record of meaningful contributions to the Lustre codebase in production or open-source environments
Demonstrated success designing, implementing, and upstreaming Lustre features that made it into major releases
Deep understanding of Lustre internals, including MDS/OSS architecture, LDLM locking and recovery, journaling, DNE, DoM, FLD, layout, quota, and security
Expert-level C programming and strong Linux kernel development experience
Strong knowledge of distributed systems, parallel file systems, and high-performance I/O
Experience with Lustre build, development, and debugging tooling such as lctl, llstat, strace, perf, and kernel tracers
Python and/or Bash skills for tooling and automation
Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related field
Clear written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to explain complex technical concepts effectively

Nice To Haves

7+ years in HPC or storage software development
Visible contributions to the Lustre open-source community, including accepted patches, LUG participation, or public technical talks
Experience running or developing Lustre in cloud environments such as AWS FSx for Lustre, Azure Lustre, or custom cloud deployments
Familiarity with adjacent systems such as Ceph, DAOS, BeeGFS, WekaIO, or GPFS
Exposure to RDMA, NVMe-oF, CXL, computational storage, or AI/ML I/O workloads
Conference presentations, technical publications, or other public engineering contributions

Responsibilities

Contribute to Lustre architecture and lead implementation of new features across core subsystems including MDS/OSS, LDLM, DNE, DoM, FLD, layout, snapshot, quota, security, and recovery
Write high-performance, production-grade code across the Lustre kernel module, user-space utilities, and supporting libraries
Own the full development lifecycle for major features, from design and coding through testing, performance tuning, and upstream patch submission
Improve scalability for multi-petabyte Lustre environments, including metadata performance, I/O path optimization, and integration with modern interconnects and storage fabrics
Modernize Lustre internals through kernel API updates, locking improvements, RDMA enhancements, and cloud/container-oriented capabilities
Prototype and evaluate emerging technologies such as NVMe-oF, CXL, and other next-generation storage approaches for potential Lustre integration
Strengthen regression, stress, and performance validation using tools such as IOR, mdtest, fio, and custom Lustre test tooling
Perform deep code-level performance analysis using Lustre tracing tools, perf, lockstat, and kernel profilers
Work closely with Principal Engineers, hardware teams, and application owners to translate real workload needs into practical Lustre improvements
Mentor other developers and contribute design docs, technical guides, and engineering reviews