Principal Software Engineer - Stornext

We are seeking a highly experienced Principal Software Engineer to provide senior technical leadership for the StorNext sustaining engineering team. This role is responsible for driving resolution of complex field escalations, sustaining and modernizing StorNext Storage Manager and related filesystem components, advancing platform compatibility with current operating system releases, and strengthening the build, test, and deployment infrastructure used across engineering. The ideal candidate will bring deep systems-level expertise, strong ownership, and the ability to operate independently across customer support, product engineering, QA, and release operations.

Responsibilities:

• StorNext Sustaining Engineering Leadership: Serve as a senior technical owner for StorNext software in production, with primary responsibility for Storage Manager and supporting responsibility for StorNext filesystem-related issues, including:
• Lead root-cause analysis and resolution of complex customer escalations, including crash dumps, field logs, and difficult-to-reproduce production issues.
• Partner with product management and senior engineering stakeholders to evaluate feature requests, technical feasibility, risk, and long-term maintainability.
• Drive platform modernization efforts required to support new major Red Hat, Linux distribution, 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), and third-party packages. Engineering Environment and VM Template Ownership: Architect, build, and maintain the VM templates and engineering environments used for development, build, and test workflows, including:
• Track, assess, and plan support for new Linux and Windows releases used across development, 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, and related scripting technologies.
• Resolve package manager, installation, networking, OS compatibility, and configuration issues across supported templates.
• Offline File Manager (OFM) Technical Ownership: Act as the senior technical authority for OFM support, maintenance, and knowledge transfer, including:
• Evaluate, debug, and resolve complex customer-reported OFM issues with a focus on quality, reliability, and long-term supportability.
• Design and implement OFM enhancements requested by Product Management while balancing 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 infrastructure that supports StorNext engineering and release workflows, including:
• Create, configure, and maintain VMs for new build machines and sustaining engineering environments.
• Integrate packages, build systems, and automation workflows with Jenkins and related continuous 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.

Requirements:

• 8+ years of professional systems software development experience using C and/or C++.
• Deep Linux systems experience across Red Hat and Debian/Ubuntu variants, including installation, packaging, networking, services, and OS-level troubleshooting.
• Expert-level programming experience in C and C++ (C++11/C++17), with strong Python scripting and automation skills.
• Advanced debugging skills using GDB, system logs, core files, crash dumps, and other production diagnostic artifacts.
• Proven ability to perform root-cause analysis on complex, multi-process, distributed, or timing-sensitive software failures.
• Strong understanding of build systems, compiler behavior, linker errors, dependency management, and release engineering workflows.
• Experience designing, debugging, and sustaining multi-process systems, inter-process communication, 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 or customer environments.
• Experience with RPC, TCP, and other inter-process or distributed communication mechanisms.
• Additional language experience with Objective-C, Perl, PHP, Java, Assembly, JSON, or similar technologies used in legacy enterprise software environments.
• Networking, authentication, and directory services knowledge, including SSSD and Active Directory integration.

Skills

C, C++, Linux, Python