StorNext Principal Software Engineer
Job Summary and Duties:We are seeking a highly experienced Principal Software Engineer to provide senior technicalleadership for the StorNext sustaining engineering team. This role is responsible for drivingresolution of complex field escalations, sustaining and modernizing StorNext Storage Managerand related filesystem components, advancing platform compatibility with current operatingsystem releases, and strengthening the build, test, and deployment infrastructure used acrossengineering. The idealcandidate will bring deep systems-level expertise, strong ownership, and the ability to operateindependently across customer support, product engineering, QA, and release operations.
Specific duties include but are not limited to:StorNext Sustaining Engineering Leadership: Serve as a senior technical owner for StorNextsoftware in production, with primary responsibility for Storage Manager and supportingresponsibility for StorNext filesystem-related issues, including:▪ Lead root-cause analysis and resolution of complex customer escalations, includingcrash dumps, field logs, and difficult-to-reproduce production issues.▪ Partner with Product Management and senior engineering stakeholders to evaluatefeature requests, technical feasibility, risk, and long-term maintainability.▪ Drive platform modernization efforts required to support new major Red Hat, Linuxdistribution, Windows, and other operating system releases.▪ Own and provide technical direction for critical legacy and sustaining components,including:▪ snauditlogs▪ TSM/MSM▪ Legacy GUI (Java code)▪ Third-party packages• Engineering Environment and VM Template Ownership: Architect, build, and maintainthe VM templates and engineering environments used for development, build, and testworkflows, including:▪ Track, assess, and plan support for new Linux and Windows releases used acrossdevelopment, build, qualification, and customer environments.▪ Create new VM templates for Linux (Alma, Oracle, Rocky, RedHat, Debian, Ubuntu,SLES) and Windows 11
Modernize, troubleshoot, and maintain deployment automation written in PHP, Perl, andrelated scripting technologies.▪ Resolve package manager, installation, networking, OS compatibility, and configurationissues across supported templates.▪ Offline File Manager (OFM) Technical Ownership: Act as the senior technical authorityfor OFM support, maintenance, and knowledge transfer, including:▪ Evaluate, debug, and resolve complex customer-reported OFM issues with a focus onquality, reliability, and long-term supportability.▪ Design and implement OFM enhancements requested by Product Management whilebalancing customer impact, technical debt, and release risk.▪ Mentor QA engineers and developers on OFM architecture, operational behavior,troubleshooting methods, and best practices.▪ Build Infrastructure and Release Enablement: Own and evolve the build infrastructurethat supports StorNext engineering and release workflows, including:▪ Create, configure, and maintain VMs for new build machines and sustaining engineeringenvironments.▪ Integrate packages, build systems, and automation workflows with Jenkins and relatedcontinuous integration infrastructure.▪ Customer and Cross-Functional Escalation Support: Engage directly with customers,▪ Support, QA, Product Management, and Engineering leadership to clarify issues,communicate technical findings, and drive resolution of high-impact escalations.
Required Qualifications:• 8+ years of professional systems software development experience using C and/or C++.• Deep Linux systems experience across Red Hat and Debian/Ubuntu variants, includinginstallation, packaging, networking, services, and OS-level troubleshooting.• Expert-level programming experience in C and C++ (C++11/C++17), with strong Pythonscripting and automation skills.• Advanced debugging skills using GDB, system logs, core files, crash dumps, and otherproduction diagnostic artifacts.• Proven ability to perform root-cause analysis on complex, multi-process, distributed, or timingsensitive software failures.• Strong understanding of build systems, compiler behavior, linker errors, dependencymanagement, and release engineering workflows.• Experience designing, debugging, and sustaining multi-process systems, inter-processcommunication, and long-running services.• Practical experience using AI-assisted development tools such as Claude Code,including:◦ MEMORY.md◦ Skills◦ MCP servers◦ Multi-agent development• Experience working in Scrum or similar agile development environments, with the maturity to balance planned work, escalation response, and release commitments
Preferred Qualifications:• Windows and Mac development experience, especially in mixed-platform engineering orcustomer environments.• Experience with RPC, TCP, and other inter-process or distributed communicationmechanisms.• Additional language experience with Objective-C, Perl, PHP, Java, Assembly, JSON, or similartechnologies used in legacy enterprise software environments.• Networking, authentication, and directory services knowledge, including SSSD and ActiveDirectory integration.
Ideal Candidate:The ideal candidate is a senior, hands-on systems engineer who can operate as a technicalowner across sustaining engineering, customer escalation support, build infrastructure, andlegacy platform modernization. This person should be comfortable moving from low-leveldebugging to architecture discussions, from customer-facing issue resolution to mentoring QAand development teams, and from urgent field escalations to long-term improvements inreliability and maintainability. We recognize that few candidates will bring every skill listed; weare looking for deep technical strength, strong ownership, mature judgment, and the ability toquickly ramp into complex enterprise storage software.
KeyWords• Linux• C/C++• StorNext• Storage Manager• Customer Support