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 worlds most demanding AI data centers in industries ranging from life sciences and healthcare to financial services autonomous cars Government academia research and manufacturing.

DDNs 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.

As a Sr. Staff Software Engineer - AI In-Market Engineering youll be the final escalation point for the most complex and critical issues affecting enterprise and hyperscale environments. This hands-on role is ideal for a deep technical expert who thrives under pressure and has a passion for solving distributed system challenges at scale.

Youll collaborate with Engineering Product Management and Field teams to drive root cause resolutions define architectural best practices and continuously improve product resiliency. LeveragingAI toolsand automation youll reduce time-to-resolution streamline diagnostics and elevate the support experience for strategic customers.

Key Responsibilities

Technical Expertise & Escalation Leadership

• Own critical customer case escalations end-to-end including deep root cause analysis and mitigation strategies.
• Act as the highest technical escalation point for Infinia support incidents especially in production-impacting scenarios.
• Lead war rooms live incident bridges and cross-functional response efforts with Engineering QA and Field teams.
• Utilize AI-powered debugging log analysis and system pattern recognition tools to accelerate resolution.

Product Knowledge & Value Creation

• Become a subject-matter expert on Infinia internals: metadata handling storage fabric interfaces performance tuning AI integration etc.
• Reproduce complex customer issues and propose product improvements or workarounds.
• Author and maintain detailed runbooks performance tuning guides and RCA documentation.
• Feed real-world support insights back into the development cycle to improve reliability and diagnostics.

Customer Engagement & Business Enablement

• Partner with Field CTOs Solutions Architects and Sales Engineers to ensure customer success.
• Translate technical issues into executive-ready summaries and business impact statements.
• Participate in post-mortems and executive briefings for strategic accounts.
• Drive adoption of observability automation and self-healing support mechanisms using AI/ML tools.

Required Qualifications

• 10 years in enterprise storage distributed systems or cloud infrastructure support/engineering.
• Deep understanding of file systems (POSIX NFS S3) storage performance and Linux kernel internals.
• Proven debugging skills at system/protocol/app levels (e.g. strace tcpdump perf).
• Hands-on experience with AI/ML data pipelines container orchestration (Kubernetes) and GPU-based architectures.
• Exposure to RDMA NVMe-oF or high-performance networking stacks.
• Exceptional communication and executive reporting skills.
• Experience using AI tools (e.g. log pattern analysis LLM-based summarization automated RCA tooling) to accelerate diagnostics and reduce MTTR.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with DDN VAST Weka or similar scale-out file systems.
• Strong scripting/coding ability in Python Bash or Go.
• Familiarity with observability platforms: Prometheus Grafana ELK OpenTelemetry.
• Knowledge of replication consistency models and data integrity mechanisms.
• Exposure to Sovereign AI LLM model training environments or autonomous system data architectures.

This position requires participation in an on-call rotation to provide after-hours support as needed.

Success Metrics First 30 Days

• Technical Ramp-Up

• • Complete Infinia training labs and architecture deep dives.
  • Stand up a fully functioning Infinia test system.
  • Shadow at least 5 complex escalations and participate in 2 customer calls.

• Operational Integration

• • Lead one live incident response and deliver a full RCA within 48 hours.
  • Propose 3 enhancements to internal tools AI/automation usage or documentation.
  • Establish key partnerships with Engineering and Field teams.

• Strategic Insight

• • Deliver a written 30-day reflection with gaps and high-impact recommendations.
  • Begin identifying patterns where AI or automation can reduce MTTR or improve proactive detection.

Success Metrics Beyond 30 Days

• MTTR on high-severity cases consistently below internal SLAs.
• Volume and quality of resolved L4 escalations.
• Strategic tooling or automation contributions adopted across the support org.
• Executive-ready RCAs that inform product improvement.
• High-impact engagements with strategic accounts (prevention performance tuning etc.)

DataDirect Networks (DDN) 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.