Staff Software Engineer

We’re a global team of over 400 people, working together to push the boundaries of open-source technology and multi-cloud solutions. Our vision is to help developers, builders, and creators bring their ideas to life with speed and simplicity, by providing a cloud data platform that makes open-source databases, search, streaming, and application infrastructure easily accessible to everyone.

The Role:

We’re looking for a founding Staff Engineer to lead the way—someone who can architect, ship, and run this service. Think of this role as the “CTO of the team”: you’ll set the technical direction, design the early architecture, define SLOs, and contribute to open-source. If you’re interested in eventually moving into engineering management, that path is open.

We work like a startup inside Aiven: fast shipping, tight feedback loops, and treating mistakes as opportunities to learn. Our focus is on mid-market customers who need simple, open solutions that just work.

What You'll Do:

• Design and own the architecture for running managed services (including VPC support), backed by Aiven-managed data systems (Kafka®, OpenSearch®, PostgreSQL®, and other technologies).

• Ensure reliability and resilience: design failover mechanisms, deployment patterns, upgrade strategies, and observability for metrics, logs, and traces.

• Develop and maintain ingestion pipelines and connectors (primarily in Python) to collect and synchronize metadata across Aiven services.

• Implement identity and access control synchronization, aligning Aiven’s Teams and Roles with catalog-level RBAC/ABAC policies across APIs and UIs.

• Collaborate cross-functionally with Product, Design, Security, and Platform teams to define SLOs, readiness checklists, and operational runbooks.

• Iteratively build the product 0 from PoC through LA to GA — balancing speed, quality, and long-term maintainability.

• Contribute across the stack where needed: Python for orchestration, Java for service improvements and fixes, and React/TypeScript for Console experience improvements.

• Coach and mentor engineers, set technical standards, and shape the engineering culture for the new product line.

What We're Looking For:

• Strong experience building and operating managed services or SaaS platforms (single- or multi-tenant): tenancy models, and incident management.

• Hands-on engineering skills, particularly in:

• Python for service orchestration, platform development and ingestion

• REST API design and integration — building, securing, and maintaining user facing, service-to-service APIs

• Java languages (Java) for improvements and integrations of managed services.

• React/TypeScript for occasional Console UI enhancements

• Experience with metadata, catalog, or data pipeline systems: relational databases (PostgreSQL/MySQL), search engines (OpenSearch/Elasticsearch), and event logs (Kafka).

• Cloud and platform experience: Terraform/IaC, networking (VPC peering/BYOC), observability, and cost optimization.

• Security mindset: experience with access control, audit trails, GDPR, ISO, and SOC2 compliance.

• Product sense and delivery focus: ability to work iteratively with design partners and turn concepts into customer-ready services.

Nice to have:

• Contributions to open-source projects.

• Prior experience working in startups as one of the first hires or co-founder.

• Experience with policy-enforced access for queries (row/column filtering, masking).

• Familiarity with Aiven services like Kafka®, PostgreSQL®, OpenSearch®, ClickHouse®

Don’t worry if your experience doesn’t line up perfectly – we still encourage you to apply! We believe in investing in our crabs’ professional growth.

Amazing! What’s next:

If you think Aiven is the place for you and that our Values align with yours, send us your resume and we’ll get in touch!

Global Benefits:

Our global benefits are designed to help you thrive and grow, personally and professionally:

• Participate in Aiven’s equity plan.

• Balance work and life with our hybrid work policy.

• Choose the equipment you need to set yourself up for success.

• Use your Professional Development Plan budget for learning opportunities.

• Receive holistic wellbeing support through our global Employee Assistance Program.

• Inquire about our Global Time Off Commitment (Parental and Sick Leave, as well as Personal Time)

• Enjoy country-specific benefits for our global cast.

How to Recognize and Avoid Employment Scams:

There has been a rise in fake job postings used by scammers to get personal information. At Aiven, all of our emails relating to recruitment come from an @aiven.io, @greenhouse.io or @eu.greenhouse.io domain and all of our interviews are conducted by video call or in person. Our interviews will never occur via text or chat. If you’re unsure of the legitimacy of a job opportunity/offer pertaining to Aiven, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at [email protected].

Equal Opportunities:

Aiven provides equal employment opportunities to all qualified employees and applicants for employment without regard to age, gender identity, national or ethnic origin, religion, sexual orientation, physical and mental ability, marital and family status or without regard to any other similar personal attributes. Aiven complies with applicable local laws governing non-discrimination in employment in every location in which the company operates. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, training and any other terms and conditions related to employment.

At Aiven we are committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities or special needs in our working environment and job application procedures. We make all reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities or who otherwise need support to thrive in the workplace. We are committed to continuously improving workplace accessibility. There is an option to request a discussion in the application process but if you have any questions before applying please write to us at [email protected].