Staff Engineer, Product Software

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Job Summary

Every day, Equinix’s global network generates billions of telemetry data points. The platform behind them is evolving from request-driven APIs into a real-time, event-driven streaming fabric built on open standards such as OpenTelemetry and CloudEvents, and we are looking for a Staff Engineer to help define and build that evolution.

As a Staff Engineer on the daVinci – Network Observability team, you will take on our hardest and most ambiguous technical problems: how telemetry is collected, normalized, streamed, and served with sub-second latency. You will own the technical strategy for these problems, turn it into well-reasoned designs, and build the critical pieces yourself. You will also work across the Interconnection product organization to align on direction and raise the engineering bar.

This is a deeply technical, hands-on role. You will write code, author design docs, and multiply the impact of the engineers around you through mentorship and sound technical judgment, without needing a formal reporting line to do it.

Responsibilities

Drive the evolution to streaming and modern APIs

• Define the technical approach for evolving the platform from REST-based request/response access to real-time streaming, while keeping the REST APIs that customers depend on fast, stable, and well designed.
• Architect and build event-driven pipelines (Kafka, Flink) that ingest, normalize, and enrich telemetry from a global fleet with sub-second latency.
• Adopt open standards for telemetry and events: use OpenTelemetry for instrumentation and collection, and CloudEvents for a consistent, interoperable event format across services.
• Establish API standards for our services: contracts, versioning, pagination, rate limiting, and backward compatibility.
• Break large migrations into incremental, low-risk stages so we deliver value continuously without disrupting existing consumers.
• Build critical microservices in Java and Go, and write the code that sets the pattern for others to follow.

Shape technical direction and raise the bar

• Author design docs and technical proposals for complex, cross-cutting problems, and drive them to consensus with engineers, product, and partner teams.
• Influence the team’s roadmap by connecting technical decisions to the long-term Interconnection product vision, and help leadership understand trade-offs and risks.
• Set engineering standards for how we design, test, and ship: clean architecture, strong test practices, and CI/CD on Kubernetes, Jenkins, and ArgoCD.
• Mentor engineers through design reviews, code reviews, and pairing, so the whole team grows in technical depth and judgment.
• Champion responsible AI-assisted engineering, including careful review and validation of AI-generated code.

Keep the platform reliable

• Partner with product and stakeholders to turn requirements into clear technical specifications.
• Help define SLAs, SLOs, and SLIs for the platform and keep it aligned with ITIL practices.
• Act as a technical escalation point for root-cause analysis and cross-platform incidents, and turn each lesson into a lasting improvement.

Explore what’s next

• Evaluate and prototype emerging telemetry approaches, such as Model-Driven Telemetry (MDT) and new OpenTelemetry capabilities, and bring the proven ones into the platform.
• Recommend change-management practices that improve how we deliver and operate at scale.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of software engineering experience building distributed, data-intensive systems.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent experience).
• Proven track record of owning the design and delivery of complex systems, and of influencing technical direction across teams.
• Strong proficiency in Java, with experience designing microservices and REST APIs at scale.
• Experience with streaming and event-driven architectures (e.g., Kafka, Flink).
• Strong grounding in software design principles (SOLID, Clean Architecture) applied to large-scale data systems.
• Working knowledge of observability and telemetry, including OpenTelemetry and why streaming telemetry (gNMI/MDT) outperforms SNMP at scale.
• Experience with databases such as PostgreSQL, MongoDB, and Prometheus.
• Hands-on experience with Kubernetes and CI/CD tooling such as Jenkins and ArgoCD.
• Experience with TDD and BDD practices.
• Working knowledge of AI-assisted development, including using LLM-based tools to design, build, and test software, with sound judgment in reviewing and validating AI-generated code.
• Strong written and verbal communication, with experience mentoring engineers.

Nice to have

• Experience with SLAs/SLOs and incident response for a production platform.
• Experience with OLAP and time-series databases such as ClickHouse and InfluxDB.
• Experience with CloudEvents or similar event schema standards, and with schema management (e.g., a schema registry, Avro, or Protobuf).
• Experience migrating systems from synchronous APIs to event-driven or streaming architectures.
• Exposure to machine learning in production, such as data pipelines for ML, feature engineering, or model serving.
• Experience applying AI/ML to observability use cases, such as anomaly detection or automated root-cause analysis.
• Familiarity with AI-native development practices such as Spec-Driven Development (SDD).
• Experience working with, or alongside, network engineering teams.

The targeted pay range for this position in the following location is / locations are:

United States - Redwood City Office GHQ : 146,000 - 218,000 USD / Annual

Our pay ranges reflect the minimum and maximum target for new hire pay for the full-time position determined by role, level, and location.The pay range shown is based on our compensation structure in place at the time of posting and may be updated periodically based on business needs. Individual pay is based on additional factors including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education and/or training.

The targeted pay range listed reflects the base pay only and does not include bonus, equity, or benefits. Employees are eligible for bonus, and equity may be offered depending on the position.

Equinix Benefits

As an employee, you become important to Equinix’s success. We ensure all your benefits are in line with our core values: competitive, inclusive, sustainable, connected and efficient. We keep them competitive within the current marketplace to ensure we’re providing you with the best package possible. So, wherever you are in your career and life, you’ll be able to enhance your experience and bring your whole self to work.

Employee Assistance Program: An Employee Assistance program is available to all employees.


US Benefits: - Insurance: You may enroll in health, life, disability and voluntary plans that are designed for you and your eligible family members. - Retirement: You and Equinix may contribute to a retirement plan to help you plan for your financial future. - Paid Time Off (PTO) and Paid Holidays: You will receive an accrued amount of PTO each pay period along with various paid holidays for you to rest and recharge. Eligibility requirements apply to some benefits. Benefits are subject to change and may be subject to specific plan or program terms.


Equinix is committed to ensuring that our employment process is open to all individuals, including those with a disability.  If you are a qualified candidate and need assistance or an accommodation, please let us know by completing this form.

Equinix is an Equal Employment Opportunity and, in the U.S., an Affirmative Action employer.  All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to unlawful consideration of race, color, religion, creed, national or ethnic origin, ancestry, place of birth, citizenship, sex, pregnancy / childbirth or related medical conditions, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital or domestic partnership status, age, veteran or military status, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, political / organizational affiliation, status as a victim or family member of a victim of crime or abuse, or any other status protected by applicable law.

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This posting is a new position within our organization.