Sr. Manager Platform Engineering

This is an incredible opportunity to be part of a company that has been at the forefront of AI and high-performance data storage innovation for over two decades. DataDirect Networks (DDN) is a global market leader renowned for powering many of the world's most demanding AI data centers, in industries ranging from life sciences and healthcare to financial services, autonomous cars, Government, academia, research and manufacturing.

"DDN's A3I solutions are transforming the landscape of AI infrastructure." – IDC 

“The real differentiator is DDN. I never hesitate to recommend DDN. DDN is the de facto name for AI Storage in high performance environments” - Marc Hamilton, VP, Solutions Architecture & Engineering | NVIDIA 

DDN is the global leader in AI and multi-cloud data management at scale. Our cutting-edge data intelligence platform is designed to accelerate AI workloads, enabling organizations to extract maximum value from their data. With a proven track record of performance, reliability, and scalability, DDN empowers businesses to tackle the most challenging AI and data-intensive workloads with confidence. 

Our success is driven by our unwavering commitment to innovation, customer-centricity, and a team of passionate professionals who bring their expertise and dedication to every project. This is a chance to make a significant impact at a company that is shaping the future of AI and data management. 

Our commitment to innovation, customer success, and market leadership makes this an exciting and rewarding role for a driven professional looking to make a lasting impact in the world of AI and data storage. 

We are seeking a Senior Software Engineering Manager to lead our Platform Engineering team to lead the design, architecture, and evolution of Infinia at DDN. This role operates across the full system stack including storage, compute, networking, firmware, BIOS, operating systems, orchestration, and cloud infrastructure, with deep ownership of storage media behavior, system reliability, and performance at scale.

You will guide teams through complex architectural decisions, foster a high-performing engineering culture, and partner closely with product, infrastructure, and executive leadership to deliver reliable, high-availability solutions for data-intensive workloads.

DDN - Infinia engineers come from diverse backgrounds, and we consider them to be in the highest tier of technology game changers globally. They have created, architected and pioneered numerous advancements in data enabling technologies, and delivered groundbreaking ideas which have shaped and transformed the storage industry. 

What You’ll Do

• Lead and grow a diverse team of senior and principal engineers focused on distributed storage and platform engineering systems. You will be responsible for hiring, mentoring, career development, and performance management.
• Work closely with architects and senior technical leaders to define and drive the technical roadmap for Infinia while understanding the platform implications of product and infrastructure decisions.
• Lead the implementation required to support new on-premises and cloud platforms, including hardware qualification, performance characterization, platform bring-up, and feature enablement.
• Partner with product management and stakeholders to translate business needs into technical priorities and executable engineering plans.
• Define and monitor engineering metrics, SLIs/SLOs, and operational health indicators to improve system availability, durability, and performance at scale.
• Establish engineering best practices, development processes, validation strategies, and quality standards to improve product reliability and engineering efficiency.
• Drive secure-by-design engineering practices including platform hardening, vulnerability management, and secure software supply chain initiatives.
• Manage project execution including scoping, prioritization, staffing, dependency management, risk mitigation, and on-time delivery of strategic initiatives.
• Work closely with OEMs, silicon vendors, and infrastructure partners to validate and certify new hardware platforms.
• Collaborate with vendors and internal teams to triage, root-cause, and resolve complex hardware, firmware, software, performance, and system integration issues.
• Participate in high-priority customer escalations involving performance, reliability, and large-scale distributed systems troubleshooting.
• Foster a culture of technical excellence, accountability, collaboration, and continuous learning across the organization.

What will you bring to DDN

• 20+ years of experience in platform engineering, infrastructure engineering, distributed systems, or related technical domains.
• Proven experience leading high-performing engineering teams in complex infrastructure or distributed systems environments.
• Expertise in Linux internals, high-performance storage systems, and distributed systems architecture.
• Expertise in platform validation, hardware qualification, system bring-up, and production infrastructure operations.
• Experience with system performance analysis, benchmarking, profiling, and troubleshooting across hardware and software layers.
• Familiarity with modern datacenter technologies including NVMe, PCIe, RDMA, high-speed Ethernet, and/or InfiniBand.
• Proficiency in Golang with working knowledge of Python and automation frameworks.
• Familiarity with infrastructure-as-code technologies such as Terraform or CloudFormation.
• Experience with server management technologies such as Redfish, IPMI, BMCs, and platform telemetry systems.
• Understanding of infrastructure security, Linux hardening, vulnerability management, and secure platform design principles.
• Previous experience in parallel computing, server architecture, storage infrastructure, or datacenter design is highly beneficial.
• Background working with OEMs, silicon vendors, cloud infrastructure providers, or hyperscale environments.
• Experience driving execution in fast-moving and technically complex environments.
• Excitement about the future of large-scale distributed storage and data infrastructure systems.

DDN has a very strong orientation towards these 4 characteristics and any successful employee will demonstrate these capabilities: 

Self-Starter - Takes independent action to identify and solve problems. Seeks out relevant information needed to make decisions. Gets involved with new initiatives. 

Success/Achievement Orientation - Delivers quality results consistently. Targets, achieves (or exceeds) measurable results. Sets challenging goals, focuses on critical priorities, and is accountable. 

Problem Solving - Recognizes problems and responds with a systematic assessment that identifies and addresses cause of issue. Practical, realistic, and resourceful. 

Innovative - Builds and improves key business processes that enhance the effectiveness of DDN. Generates new ideas, challenges the status quo, and solves problems creatively.

DataDirect Networks, Inc. is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer.  All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender, sex stereotyping, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, protected Veteran Status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.

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