Confluent - Systems Engineer

We're not just building better tech. We're rewriting how data moves and what the world can do with it. With Confluent, an IBM Company, data doesn't sit still. Our platform puts information in motion, streaming in near real-time so companies can react faster, build smarter, and deliver experiences as dynamic as the world around them.

It takes a unique mix of drive and curiosity to join this team. We’re here to tackle complex problems, get stuff done, and enjoy the ride while we do it. No egos, no solo acts—just sharp, collaborative humans working hard, celebrating the wins, and building the future together.

One Confluent. One Team. One Data Streaming Platform.

We're looking for a Staff Systems Engineer to be the technical leader for Cloud, Network & Automation within Corporate IT. You will set the architecture and engineering standards for the cloud environments, network access, secrets, infrastructure-as-code pipelines, and automation platforms that every employee and every IT team depends on. This is a broader and more senior scope than a Senior Systems Engineer: rather than owning individual systems end to end, you define how those systems are designed, delivered, secured, and handed off, and you raise the bar for the engineers around you.

You will partner closely with the Identity and SaaS pillars, Trust & Security, and Infrastructure, and you will help guide the integration of our environments with IBM. You influence roadmap and risk decisions without relying on formal authority.

• Cloud Platform Architecture:
  Set technical direction for our AWS, GCP, and Azure footprint supporting corporate IT, including account, project, and subscription structure, guardrails, networking, and cost and risk hygiene. Lead the cleanup and hardening of legacy cloud environments and define the target state.

• Infrastructure as Code & Git Ops:
  Own the reference patterns and delivery pipelines for infrastructure change (Terraform, Atlantis, Argo, Semaphore), including module standards, pull-request controls, drift detection, and safe rollout practices that other engineers can adopt without your help.

• Network & Zero Trust Access:
  Architect secure remote access and network connectivity across standard and FedRAMP environments, including VPN and zero trust access tooling (for example Palo Alto Networks platforms), resource routing, allow listing, and egress IP management.

• Automation & Orchestration Platforms:
  Own the platforms IT automation runs on (Rundeck, Semaphore CI, Workato, Cloud Run and Cloud Functions). Set standards for how automation is built, tested, secured, monitored, and handed off, and eliminate systemic toil with durable software rather than one-off scripts.

• Secrets, Service Accounts & Workload Identity:
  Define patterns for secrets management (Vault), service accounts, tokens, and workload identity federation across clouds and CI/CD. Partner with the Identity pillar, which owns user identity and access governance, so that machine identity is consistent, least-privilege, and auditable.

• Core Services & Cloud-Native Operations:
  Own or guide operational patterns for DNS (DNSControl and the it-dns repository), load balancers and TLS lifecycle, GKE/Kubernetes, Cloud SQL and other service databases, and logging and monitoring, with clear service ownership and runbooks.

• Developer & Virtual Desktop Infrastructure:
  Set administration and security standards for the Git Hub Enterprise organization and the VDI environment, balancing developer experience, security, lifecycle governance, and auditability.

• Security Posture, Incident & Compliance:
  Drive cloud and infrastructure security posture, including SSPM findings, misconfiguration remediation, and…