Sr/Staff Lustre Engineer
Overview
If you’ve spent years deep in the Lustre codebase — not just administering Lustre systems, but actually designing, building, optimizing, and upstreaming features — this is a chance to work on one of the most demanding storage engineering problems in the market.
We’re looking for a hands-on Lustre Engineer to help shape the next generation of high-performance, enterprise-ready Lustre capabilities. This role is for someone who is equally comfortable working in kernel-space C, analyzing performance bottlenecks in large-scale deployments, and collaborating with other senior engineers to evolve Lustre architecture for modern infrastructure.
Job 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
Salary Range: $150,000 - $250,000
DDN
Why this role is interesting
This is a rare opportunity to work on deeply technical, high-impact storage engineering problems in a domain where performance, scale, reliability, and upstream credibility all matter. If you want to influence the future of Lustre in production-grade environments, this is the kind of role where your work can genuinely shape the platform.
Call to action
If you’ve made meaningful contributions to Lustre and want to work on large-scale filesystem innovation, we’d love to hear from you.
If you want, I can also turn this into:
a shorter LinkedIn-style advert
a more formal JD
or a recruiter outreach version for direct messaging.