# Sr/Staff Lustre Engineer at DDN

Sr/Staff Lustre Engineer at DDN in Santa Clara Colocation. Hybrid, full-time. Posted October 2, 2026.

- Company: DDN
- Location: Santa Clara Colocation
- Workplace: Hybrid
- Job type: Full-time
- Experience: 7+ years
- Posted: 2026-10-02
- Apply: https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/ddn/718e22e3-436e-43a7-898f-7c0d7508ab20/application
- Source: https://jobmagic.ai/jobs/srstaff-lustre-engineer-ddn-cmanf0

## Requirements

- 7+ years of progressive, hands-on Lustre software development experience
- A strong track record of meaningful contributions to the Lustre codebase in production or open-source environments
- Demonstrated success designing, implementing, and upstreaming Lustre features that made it into major releases
- Deep understanding of Lustre internals, including MDS/OSS architecture, LDLM locking and recovery, journaling, DNE, DoM, FLD, layout, quota, and security
- Expert-level C programming and strong Linux kernel development experience
- Strong knowledge of distributed systems, parallel file systems, and high-performance I/O
- Experience with Lustre build, development, and debugging tooling such as lctl, llstat, strace, perf, and kernel tracers
- Python and/or Bash skills for tooling and automation
- Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related field
- Clear written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to explain complex technical concepts effectively

## Description

### **What you’ll do**

- Contribute to Lustre architecture and lead implementation of new features across core subsystems including MDS/OSS, LDLM, DNE, DoM, FLD, layout, snapshot, quota, security, and recovery

- Write high-performance, production-grade code across the Lustre kernel module, user-space utilities, and supporting libraries

- Own the full development lifecycle for major features, from design and coding through testing, performance tuning, and upstream patch submission

- Improve scalability for multi-petabyte Lustre environments, including metadata performance, I/O path optimization, and integration with modern interconnects and storage fabrics

- Modernize Lustre internals through kernel API updates, locking improvements, RDMA enhancements, and cloud/container-oriented capabilities

- Prototype and evaluate emerging technologies such as NVMe-oF, CXL, and other next-generation storage approaches for potential Lustre integration

- Strengthen regression, stress, and performance validation using tools such as IOR, mdtest, fio, and custom Lustre test tooling

- Perform deep code-level performance analysis using Lustre tracing tools, perf, lockstat, and kernel profilers

- Work closely with Principal Engineers, hardware teams, and application owners to translate real workload needs into practical Lustre improvements

- Mentor other developers and contribute design docs, technical guides, and engineering reviews

### **What we’re looking for**

- 7+ years of progressive, hands-on Lustre software development experience

- A strong track record of meaningful contributions to the Lustre codebase in production or open-source environments

- Demonstrated success designing, implementing, and upstreaming Lustre features that made it into major releases

- Deep understanding of Lustre internals, including MDS/OSS architecture, LDLM locking and recovery, journaling, DNE, DoM, FLD, layout, quota, and security

- Expert-level C programming and strong Linux kernel development experience

- Strong knowledge of distributed systems, parallel file systems, and high-performance I/O

- Experience with Lustre build, development, and debugging tooling such as lctl, llstat, strace, perf, and kernel tracers

- Python and/or Bash skills for tooling and automation

- Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related field

- Clear written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to explain complex technical concepts effectively

### **Nice to have**

- 7+ years in HPC or storage software development

- Visible contributions to the Lustre open-source community, including accepted patches, LUG participation, or public technical talks

- Experience running or developing Lustre in cloud environments such as AWS FSx for Lustre, Azure Lustre, or custom cloud deployments

- Familiarity with adjacent systems such as Ceph, DAOS, BeeGFS, WekaIO, or GPFS

- Exposure to RDMA, NVMe-oF, CXL, computational storage, or AI/ML I/O workloads

- Conference presentations, technical publications, or other public engineering contributions

### **You’ll likely be a strong fit if you…**

- Have built inside Lustre itself, not just around it

- Enjoy solving hard kernel, performance, and distributed systems problems

- Care about code quality, upstream contribution, and long-term architectural impact

- Want to work on infrastructure that operates at real scale under real performance constraints

### **This role is probably not the right fit if you…**

- Have mainly supported or administered Lustre rather than developed it

- Come from general storage or kernel backgrounds without clear Lustre code contribution history

- Prefer high-level application engineering over low-level systems and kernel work