Overview:
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.

“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:
DDN is seeking a Principal Performance Architect to drive end-to-end performance analysis and optimization for Infinia, our AI-native, highly distributed data intelligence platform.
In this critical role, you will own the visibility, measurement, and tuning of system performance across the entire stack — from AI applications, vector databases, and inference pipelines, down to I/O patterns on NVMe drives. You’ll partner with teams across engineering, architecture, and field engineering to deliver insights and innovations that drive customer value at scale.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• 15+ years of experience in systems performance engineering or low-level infrastructure development.
• Proven expertise in end-to-end performance debugging across distributed systems, from application logic down to I/O subsystems.
• Strong background in system-level tools (e.g., perf, ftrace, bpftrace, nvme-cli, or similar).
• Deep understanding of NVMe, CPU and memory hierarchy, caching, thread scheduling, and Linux kernel internals.
• Experience optimizing compute- or data-intensive applications such as AI inference, search, or analytics.
• Proficiency in C/C++ or Rust and scripting languages such as Python or Bash.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, especially around technical reporting and architectural recommendations.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Familiarity with vector databases (e.g., FAISS, Milvus, Weaviate) and LLM inference pipelines.
• Experience with SPDK, RDMA, or high-performance I/O libraries.
• Exposure to storage telemetry, AI model performance tuning, or multi-tenant throughput optimization.
• Experience working in highly scaled distributed systems or HPC environments.
  This position requires participation in an on-call rotation to provide after-hours support as needed.

Please refer the Job description for details