Sr. Staff Engineer, Lustre

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Sr. Staff Engineer, Lustre based in the United States.

The Sr. Staff Engineer, Lustre will play a key technical role in advancing distributed storage systems and improving the performance, reliability, and scalability of Lustre file system technology. This hands-on position is ideal for an experienced systems engineer with deep expertise in Linux-based environments, filesystem internals, and high-performance computing infrastructure. You will lead complex debugging investigations, resolve critical defects, and design enhancements across core Lustre subsystems. Working closely with engineering, quality engineering, support, and release teams, you will help deliver robust, production-ready solutions for demanding workloads. You will also strengthen engineering practices through better diagnostics, documentation, testing, and knowledge sharing. The role encourages the thoughtful use of AI-assisted tools to accelerate troubleshooting, code comprehension, and feature development while maintaining rigorous engineering standards.

Accountabilities

• Design, develop, debug, and enhance LustreFS features and fixes across key subsystems, including llite, MDS/MDT, OSS/OST, LDLM, and LNet.

• Investigate customer-reported and large-scale deployment issues, perform root-cause analysis, and implement reliable, maintainable fixes.

• Improve performance, reliability, and fault tolerance across large-scale distributed storage environments.

• Lead and contribute to code reviews, architecture and design discussions, subsystem reviews, and assessments of testing and operational readiness.

• Collaborate with Quality Engineering (QE) and support teams to reproduce complex issues, improve diagnostic information, and expand test coverage for high-risk failure scenarios.

• Troubleshoot issues across multiple system layers, including clients, servers, networks, and backend storage components.

• Analyze system logs, characterize performance bottlenecks, and validate fixes through targeted testing, failure injection, and performance measurements.

• Improve observability, diagnostics, serviceability, and operational practices across Lustre deployments.

• Document subsystem behavior, debugging techniques, recurring failure patterns, and operational best practices to strengthen shared technical knowledge.

• Apply AI-assisted tools where appropriate to accelerate issue triage, log analysis, code comprehension, debugging, documentation, and early-stage design exploration.

• Promote engineering consistency and technical redundancy by sharing expertise, improving code review quality, and reducing reliance on individual subsystem specialists.

• Mentor less-experienced engineers and lead focused technical initiatives within relevant subsystems as needed.

Requirements:

• At least 10 years of experience in systems software, distributed systems, storage engineering, Linux kernel development, or filesystem engineering.

• Strong hands-on experience developing, supporting, or optimizing LustreFS, with deep expertise in at least one major subsystem.

• Advanced C programming skills and strong Linux systems debugging capabilities.

• Working knowledge of Linux kernel internals, filesystem semantics, networking, and systems performance analysis.

• Experience with LNet and/or high-performance networking technologies such as RDMA, InfiniBand, RoCE, or TCP-based storage networking.

• Proven ability to investigate and resolve complex issues spanning client, server, network, and backend storage layers.

• Strong analytical and troubleshooting skills, with a rigorous approach to correctness, maintainability, testing, and operational reliability.

• Ability to collaborate effectively across engineering, quality assurance, support, and release teams in a fast-moving technical environment.

• Experience in high-performance computing (HPC), AI infrastructure, or large-scale parallel storage environments is preferred.

• Familiarity with metadata-intensive and high-throughput workloads, including workload characterization and performance tuning, is an advantage.

• Exposure to ZFS, ldiskfs, NVMe-backed storage, and related observability and performance-analysis tools is beneficial.

• Experience developing test plans, reproducible test frameworks, runbooks, diagnostic automation, or other tools that improve troubleshooting efficiency is desirable.

• Comfort using AI-assisted tools to support debugging, code review, issue triage, documentation, and early-stage technical design is a plus.

• Experience mentoring junior engineers or leading technical initiatives within a specific subsystem is advantageous.

• Strong written communication and knowledge-sharing skills, with the ability to explain complex technical issues and document reusable solutions.

Benefits:

• Full-time employment.

• Remote work arrangement for candidates based in North Carolina or Texas.

• Opportunity to work on advanced distributed storage technology supporting demanding, large-scale computing workloads.

• Hands-on ownership of complex engineering challenges involving Linux systems, filesystems, networking, and performance optimization.

• Opportunity to influence technical direction, improve engineering reliability, and strengthen expertise across core Lustre subsystems.

• Exposure to AI-assisted engineering workflows that enhance debugging, code comprehension, and development productivity.

• Collaboration with cross-functional engineering, quality engineering, support, and release teams.

• Opportunities to mentor engineers, share specialist knowledge, and contribute to long-term platform improvements.