Software Architect- Control Plane

WEKA is architecting a new approach to the enterprise data stack built for the age of reasoning. The WEKA® Data Platform sets the standard for agentic AI data infrastructure with a cloud and AI-native software solution that can be deployed anywhere. It transforms legacy data silos into data pipelines that dramatically increase GPU utilization and make AI model training and inference, machine learning, and other compute-intensive workloads run faster, work more efficiently, and consume less energy.
WEKA is a pre-IPO, growth-stage company on a hyper-growth trajectory. We’ve raised $375M in capital with dozens of world-class venture capital and strategic investors. We help the world’s largest and most innovative enterprises and research organizations, including 12 of the Fortune 50, achieve discoveries, insights, and business outcomes faster and more sustainably. We’re passionate about solving our customers’ most complex data challenges to accelerate intelligent innovation and business value. If you share our passion, we invite you to join us on this exciting journey.

What you'll be doing:

• Own the control-plane architecture vision, and evolve it in alignment with our product and business goals.
• Define and enact architecture principles and standards, driving clarity across teams and systems.
• Drive cross-team architectural initiatives, ensuring consistency, performance, and resilience across our stack.
• Lead technical design reviews, offering constructive feedback and mentoring engineers on system design, scalability, and best practices.
• Collaborate with product and engineering leads to align long-term technical direction with product strategy, anticipating future needs.
• Evaluate and introduce new technologies, frameworks, or patterns that enable better scalability, observability, testability, and productivity.
• Model excellent engineering work by delivering exemplary design and code, and providing insightful code reviews.
• Potentially manage and mentor a small team of senior engineers working on foundational or cross-cutting concerns.

Requirements:

• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience, including experience leading system architecture at scale.
• Proven experience as a senior Staff or Principle engineer or technical lead at a high-performing group.
• Strong systems design background: distributed systems, scalable design, data-processing and serving at scale.
• Demonstrated ability to influence and align multiple teams without formal authority.
• Excellent communication and leadership skills, able to explain complex technical concepts clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Comfortable navigating ambiguity, setting direction, and making high-impact technical decisions in a fast-paced environment. 

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience managing or mentoring senior engineers.
• Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent work experience.
• Experience contributing to filesystem, database, or similar data storage-related projects.
• Solid understanding of the Linux kernel, including performance implications of context switches, threads, memory allocations, page cache, etc.
• Hands-on experience in storage or related technical domains from current or previous roles.

The WEKA Way:

• We are Accountable: We take full ownership, always–even when things don’t go as planned. We lead with integrity, show up with responsibility & ownership, and hold ourselves and each other to the highest standards.
• We are Brave: We question the status quo, push boundaries, and take smart risks when needed. We welcome challenges and embrace debates as opportunities for growth, turning courage into fuel for innovation.
• We are Collaborative: True collaboration isn’t only about working together. It’s about lifting one another up to succeed collectively. We are team-oriented and communicate with empathy and respect. We challenge each other and conduct positive conflict resolution. We are being transparent about our goals and results. And together, we’re unstoppable.
• We are Customer Centric: Our customers are at the heart of everything we do. We actively listen and prioritize the success of our customers, and every decision we make is driven by how we can better serve, support, and empower them to succeed. When our customers win, we win.

Concerned that you don’t meet every qualification above?

Studies have shown that women and people of color may be less likely to apply for jobs if they don’t meet every qualification specified. At WEKA, we are committed to building a diverse, inclusive and authentic workplace. If you are excited about this position but are concerned that your past work experience doesn’t match up perfectly with the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway – you may be just the right candidate for this or other roles at WEKA.

 WEKA is an equal opportunity employer that prohibits discrimination and harassment of any kind. We provide equal opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training.