Staff Software Engineer, AI Platform (San Francisco)

Redpanda Data•San Francisco, CA

7h•Hybrid

About The Position

Redpanda is the first runtime and control plane for agent-data interaction — a unified platform that combines streaming, SQL analytics, and intelligent connectivity with the governance layer enterprise AI agents need in production. Built on infrastructure already trusted by Fortune 500 companies and fast-growing startups, Redpanda enforces governance entirely outside the agent's data path, controlling what agents see, limiting what they do, and capturing a tamper-proof record of everything they touch, so organizations never have to choose between innovation and control. About the Role: We’re looking for an experienced Staff Software Engineer to help architect and build the systems that power Redpanda’s vision for the Agentic Data Plane (ADP), while also shaping the technical culture behind them. In this role, you will design and develop our ADP product, building on our Bring Your Own Cloud, Serverless, and Redpanda Connect offerings. You will lead system architecture, develop new features, and operate ADP and Redpanda Cloud, helping us meet our 99.99% SLA. You will raise the engineering bar across the Cloud team and collaborate closely with Cloud, Core, and Platform engineering, as well as pre- and post-sales teams, to build robust, scalable systems with a strong emphasis on stability and zero-downtime upgrades. This is a hybrid role based in our San Francisco office.

Requirements

Significant experience designing and operating large-scale, reliable systems in public cloud environments
A track record of leading large technical projects end-to-end, from design and planning, to execution and production operations
Strong proficiency in Go (or comparable systems language with willingness to ramp)
Experience with AI-assisted software development workflows including tools like Claude Code
Production experience with Kubernetes, including running and operating workloads
Working knowledge of at least one of AWS / Azure / GCP, including IaC for system and network infrastructure
Familiarity with stream processing concepts
Excellent written and verbal communication skills; comfortable working in a globally distributed, async environment (e.g., GitHub)
Ability to collaborate effectively with engineering, product, and customer-facing stakeholders

Nice To Haves

Experience building Kubernetes operators for stateful / storage workloads
Experience building or operating SaaS platforms
Experience with streaming platforms as a user or provider
Exposure to production agentic systems and building agentic workflows

Responsibilities

Design, build and operate ADP and cloud services across AWS, GCP, and Azure, including control plane and data plane components
Convert ambiguous product requirements into clear technical designs and executable workstreams
Lead the technical direction of large projects within ADP, and contribute to architecture discussions that span ADP and adjacent Cloud teams
Anticipate technical risks and proactively mitigate them to ensure timely, high quality delivery
Set and uphold high standards for reliability, scalability, performance, and security
Identify and champion new features, process improvements, and strategic initiatives that enhance engineering culture and operational excellence
Participate in the on-call escalation chain; helping reduce escalations and improve operational health
Build tools and services for automated infrastructure provisioning, deployment, and self-healing
Make resilience and observability integral to the systems you own, enabling us to run enterprise-grade agentic systems and service in the cloud