Staff Build Systems Engineer

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

"DDN's 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.

Job Description Job Summary: DDN is seeking a Staff Build Systems Engineer to own the build, packaging, and developer build infrastructure for Infinia Software Defined Storage (SDS). The role ensures fast, reproducible builds across C/C++, Go, and web UI components and delivers reliable container and Linux package artifacts. You will support a large, distributed engineering organization working across multiple repositories, maintaining and evolving a complex multi-repo build ecosystem powered by GitHub Actions and internal runners.

Why Join Us? This role combines systems software, developer productivity, and product delivery. You will own a complex multi-component build ecosystem and modernize it without disrupting active development or releases.

• End-to-End Ownership: Own and evolve build workflows from source checkout through compilation, packaging, publication, and installation validation. Define and modernize build architecture while maintaining and improving existing systems to ensure reliability and scalability.
• Build Modernization: Introduce maintainable, scalable build technology while preserving existing product capabilities.
• Developer Productivity: Reduce build times, improve diagnostics, and ensure consistency across developer and CI environments. Own and enhance local developer tooling, including build scripts and containerized dev environments. Lead CI/CD design and maintenance in collaboration with DevOps where needed, and drive release automation and artifact promotion workflows to streamline delivery.

Core Responsibilities Own the technical direction and operational reliability of the product build ecosystem in partnership with Development, QA, Release, and DevOps.

• Build Systems and Toolchains: Own C/C++, Go, and npm build workflows, including compilers, linkers, flags, dependencies, and configuration.
• Reproducible Environments: Standardize containerized and host build environments and maintain local, CI, and release branch consistency.
• Internal Build Automation: Maintain orchestration utilities for component builds, full-product builds, packaging, and deployment preparation.
• Failure Diagnosis: Resolve compiler, linker, dependency, packaging, platform, and developer-versus-CI issues.
• Artifacts and Packaging: Produce versioned container images and Debian/RPM packages; validate dependencies, installation, upgrades, and rollback.
• CI and Artifact Repositories: Integrate builds with CI platforms and repositories such as Nexus, JFrog Artifactory, Harbor, or Quay.
• Build Performance: Improve clean and incremental build times through caching, parallelism, dependency tracking, and measurement.

What You’ll Work On

• Build-System Modernization: Inventory SCons logic and evaluate CMake, Meson/Ninja, Bazel, and other suitable alternatives.
• Prototyping and Migration: Benchmark alternatives and deliver staged migration with compatibility, validation, and rollback plans.
• Multi-Platform Delivery: Support multiple processor architectures, Linux distributions, build variants, and release branches.
• Technical Leadership: Write designs, set standards, review changes, mentor engineers, and drive cross-team decisions.

Required Skills All of the following skills are mandatory:

• Experience: 8+ years in software, build engineering, developer infrastructure, or a closely related field.
• C/C++ Builds: Strong Linux compilation and linking knowledge with GCC/Clang and SCons, Make, CMake, Meson, Ninja, or Bazel.
• Automation: Strong Python and Bash skills for maintainable build tooling and diagnostics.
• Other Ecosystems: Practical experience with Go build tooling and Node.js/npm workflows.
• Containers: Experience with Docker-based build environments and multi-stage images.
• Linux Packaging: Hands-on Debian and RPM packaging, dependency management, versioning, installation, upgrades, and publication.
• CI/CD: Build-system integration with GitHub Actions, Jenkins, GitLab CI, or equivalent platforms and artifact repositories.
• Collaboration: Strong troubleshooting, documentation, communication, ownership, and cross-team technical leadership. Preferred Skills: The following skills are desirable but not mandatory: DDN Confidential
• Build Acceleration: ccache, sccache, distributed builds, remote execution, or comparable optimization technologies.
• Secure Builds: Hermetic builds, dependency pinning, provenance, SBOMs, signing, or software supply chain security.
• Migration Experience: Migration from a legacy build system to CMake, Meson/Ninja, Bazel, or a comparable platform.
• Systems Software: Storage, networking, operating system, compiler, or other performance-critical software.
• Developer Productivity: Build-health metrics, engineering standards, documentation, and self-service developer workflows. This position may participate in a scheduled support rotation for critical build and release issues as needed.

DDN DataDirect Networks, Inc. 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.