Software Engineer - Core Systems and Storage Roles (Multiple Individual Contributor Levels) (SAN JOSE)

Own Every Moment at NetApp

At NetApp, your ideas power innovation. We lead in intelligent data infrastructure—delivering unified storage, integrated data services, and solutions that help organizations unlock the full potential of their data, from AI to multicloud.

Ready to innovate and contribute to our path to $10B? Here, you'll collaborate with passionate teams, tackle real-world challenges, and see your impact in how customers transform and grow. If you're ready to bring curiosity, creativity, and drive to every moment, NetApp is where your journey begins.

Job Summary

We are hiring experienced Systems Software Engineers across multiple NetApp engineering organizations. This pipeline posting is designed to attract strong C/C++ systems-level engineers who can contribute to core storage and data management technologies across ONTAP and other NetApp products. Candidates will be considered for roles on several teams, including ONTAP, WAFL, Replication/HA, Protocols (NFS/SMB/SAN/NVMe), Distributed Systems, Cloud Platforms, and Performance Engineering.
Engineers in these roles design, build, and optimize foundational components of NetApp’s storage stack. You will work on real-world problems involving filesystems, storage internals, distributed systems, performance, scalability, reliability, and data integrity. Work may include developing new features, enhancing subsystems, analyzing complex code paths, improving throughput and latency, debugging customer issues, or driving proofs of concept. You will collaborate with senior engineers, product teams, hardware teams, and cloud engineering groups to deliver high-quality software used globally by enterprise customers.
This posting can support multiple levels (3, 4, and 5). Team and level placement will be determined during the interview process based on experience, technical depth, and demonstrated capabilities.

Job Requirements

Core Responsibilities (All Levels)

• Design, implement, and enhance features within ONTAP and related NetApp storage systems
• Write high-quality C/C++ code that is efficient, reliable, and maintainable
• Analyze and improve existing code paths for performance, scalability, and correctness
• Debug complex issues using system-level tools, logs, tracing, and profiling
• Collaborate across engineering teams, including filesystem, protocol, cloud, hardware, and QA
• Participate in design and code reviews, contributing to engineering best practices
• Investigate performance bottlenecks and implement optimizations
• Support prototyping, research, and feasibility analysis for new ideas and features
• Communicate design decisions, technical findings, and progress clearly with peers
• Use AI-assisted tools to accelerate design, development, testing, and troubleshooting

Level‑Specific Requirements

• Software Engineer 3 (5–8 years)
  • Owns well-defined components or features
  • Implements end-to-end functionality with guidance
  • Performs profiling, debugging, and testing across subsystems
  • Contributes to design discussions and supports cross-team integration
  • Ramps quickly on ONTAP, WAFL, protocols, or storage technologies
• Software Engineer 4 (9–15 years )
  
  • Designs and owns complex subsystems or multi-sprint epics
  • Drives cross-team delivery with minimal supervision
  • Mentors junior and mid-level engineers
  • Leads deep-dive debugging and performance analysis
  • Improves reliability, observability, and architecture patterns
• Software Engineer 5 (12–16 years)
  • Leads major technical initiatives across teams or product line
  • Defines long-term architectural direction and technical strategy
  • Resolves highly complex system-wide issues in performance, data integrity, HA, scale, or protocols
  • Mentors senior engineers and influences engineering culture
  • Demonstrates deep domain expertise in filesystems, operating systems, HA/replication, or distributed systems

Qualifications

Required Technical Qualifications

• Strong proficiency in C/C++ for systems-level development
• Understanding of data structures, algorithms, memory management, and concurrency
• Experience with Unix/Linux systems programming
• Experience with one or more: filesystems, storage systems, networking/protocol stacks, distributed systems, high-availability architectures
• Strong debugging and performance analysis skills (gdb, perf, tracing, profiling tools)
• Ability to write maintainable, well-documented code
• Effective communication and collaboration skills

Qualifications that make you stand out: 

• Experience with ONTAP, WAFL, or similar storage operating systems
• Experience with NFS, SMB, SAN (iSCSI/FC), NVMe/TCP, NVMe-oF
• Experience with replication, clustering, HA, or consistency protocols
• Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP, OCI)
• Exposure to kernel subsystems, VFS, IO schedulers, caching, or media management
• Experience with distributed systems design and large-scale performance tuning
• Knowledge of CI/CD, test automation, and modern development practices

Education

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related field
• Equivalent practical experience considered

Compensation:
The target salary range for this position is $120,000 - $280,000. The salary offered will be determined by the candidate's location, qualifications, experience, and education and may be outside of this range. The range is based on 'On Target Earnings’ (OTE) representing the total potential earnings, which is the sum of the base salary and potential commission earned when performance targets are achieved. Final compensation packages are competitive and in line with industry standards, reflecting a variety of factors, and include a comprehensive benefits package. This may cover Health Insurance, Life Insurance, Retirement or Pension Plans, Paid Time Off, various Leave options, employee stock purchase plan, and/or restricted stocks (RSU’s). These offerings are subject to regional variations and governed by local laws, regulations, and company policies. We will provide detailed information about the specific benefits for your region during the recruitment process.

At NetApp, we embrace a hybrid working environment designed to strengthen connection, collaboration, and culture for all employees. This means that most roles will have some level of in-office and/or in-person expectations, which will be shared during the recruitment process.

Equal Opportunity Employer:

NetApp is firmly committed to Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) and to compliance with all federal, state and local laws that prohibit employment discrimination based on age, race, color, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, religion, disability or genetic information, pregnancy, protected veteran status, and any other protected classification.

Why You'll Thrive at NetApp

At NetApp, you won't wait for the perfect moment—you'll make it. The early planning, the extra thought, the bold idea that turns good into great: That's how our people operate and how we continue to push the boundaries of data infrastructure.

NetApp is the trusted partner for organizations transforming data into opportunity. As the only enterprise-grade storage service natively embedded in Google Cloud, AWS, and Microsoft Azure, we empower customers to run everything from traditional workloads to enterprise AI with unmatched performance, resilience, and security.

Our culture

We celebrate mold breakers, bold thinkers, and problem solvers. We reward initiative, impact, and ownership. We provide flexibility so you can balance professional ambition with your personal life. Here, differences are not just welcomed—they drive everything we do.

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