We’re not just building better tech. We’re rewriting how data moves and what the world can do with it. With Confluent, 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 certain kind of person to join this team. Those who ask hard questions, give honest feedback, and show up for each other. No egos, no solo acts. Just smart, curious humans pushing toward something bigger, together.

One Confluent. One Team. One Data Streaming Platform.

We are looking for a visionary Principal Engineer to lead the architectural strategy and technical execution of Confluent's query processing initiatives. As a key leader within the Analytics organization, you will drive the development and innovation of low latency and high throughput query capabilities, empowering our customers to derive actionable insights and make data-driven decisions at scale.

• Leadership and Strategy: Provide technical visionary leadership and strategic direction for query processing, aligning with Confluent’s overall business objectives.

• Technical Execution: Champion engineering best practices, architectural design, and technical decision-making within the Analytics organization. Lead the design and development of a performant and highly scalable query engine leveraging Confluent’s streaming platform to deliver low-latency actionable insights.

• Cross-functional Collaboration: Partner closely with Product Management, Design, and other engineering teams to define and execute product roadmaps.

• Operational Excellence: Establish and monitor key metrics and performance indicators to ensure operational efficiency and delivery excellence.

• Customer Focus: Collaborate with Product and Customer Success teams to understand customer needs and feedback, incorporating insights into technical long-term roadmaps

• Technical Expertise: 10+ years of hands-on software engineering experience in distributed databases. Proven track record of leading engineers across teams designing, developing, and operating large-scale and performant OLAP-style systems.

• Database and Query Execution Expertise: In-depth knowledge of database internals, including query compilation and optimization, execution, vectorized runtimes, distributed shuffles, columnar storage, etc.

• Query Performance and Cost Optimization: Proven experience optimizing query performance (latency, concurrency, and throughput) and cost efficiency in OLAP engines.

• Large-Scale Cloud Operations: Extensive experience operating and scaling OLAP engines or data warehouses in cloud environments, using cloud-native technologies to ensure reliability, scalability, and cost-effectiveness.

• Open-Source Contributions: Active participation in leading open-source projects such as Apache Flink, Calcite, DataFusion, Celeborn, Arrow, Spark, Clickhouse, Velox, and Ray, etc., showcasing technical leadership and advancing the state-of-the-art in distributed query processing.

• Strategic Thinker: Ability to formulate and execute strategic initiatives with a deep understanding of the industry's technical trends and the pros and cons of query engine systems.

• Collaborative Mindset: Experience working cross-functionally in a dynamic, fast-paced environment, driving alignment and achieving shared goals.

• Communication Skills: Excellent verbal and written communication skills, articulating technical concepts and strategies to technical and non-technical stakeholders

Come As You Are

Belonging isn’t a perk here. It’s the baseline. We work across time zones and backgrounds, knowing the best ideas come from different perspectives. And we make space for everyone to lead, grow, and challenge what’s possible.

We’re proud to be an equal opportunity workplace. Employment decisions are based on job-related criteria, without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status, or any other classification protected by law.