Staff Software Engineer

Aiven Unify’s mission is simple: help customers quickly discover, govern, and query their data—delivering value in minutes, not months.

Here’s a short pitch from the Product Director behind this initiative: “I'm building a small, fast-moving team inside Aiven - think startup energy, minimal process, and full ownership. The goal is to launch new open-source managed services that will drive a platform effect for Aiven, including a Data Catalog, a Federated Query Engine, and other technologies to help our customers do more across their data stack. Basically trying to make an open-source first data platform.” 

We’re looking for engineers with experience across Python, REST APIs, Java, React/TypeScript, understanding of PostgreSQL, OpenSearch, Kafka, Terraform, and cloud infrastructure to help us build and scale these next-generation data services.

The Role:

We’re looking for a founding Staff Engineer to lead the way—someone who can architect, ship, and run this service. Think of this role as the “CTO of the team”: you’ll set the technical direction, design the early architecture, define SLOs, and contribute to open-source. If you’re interested in eventually moving into engineering management, that path is open.

We work like a startup inside Aiven: fast shipping, tight feedback loops, and treating mistakes as opportunities to learn. Our focus is on mid-market customers who need simple, open solutions that just work.

What You'll Do:

• Design and own the architecture for running managed services (including VPC support), backed by Aiven-managed data systems (Kafka®, OpenSearch®, PostgreSQL®, and other technologies).
• Ensure reliability and resilience: design failover mechanisms, deployment patterns, upgrade strategies, and observability for metrics, logs, and traces.
• Develop and maintain ingestion pipelines and connectors (primarily in Python) to collect and synchronize metadata across Aiven services.
• Implement identity and access control synchronization, aligning Aiven’s Teams and Roles with catalog-level RBAC/ABAC policies across APIs and UIs.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with Product, Design, Security, and Platform teams to define SLOs, readiness checklists, and operational runbooks.
• Iteratively build the product 0 from PoC through LA to GA — balancing speed, quality, and long-term maintainability.
• Contribute across the stack where needed: Python for orchestration, Java for service improvements and fixes, and React/TypeScript for Console experience improvements.
• Coach and mentor engineers, set technical standards, and shape the engineering culture for the new product line.

What We're Looking For:

• Strong experience building and operating managed services or SaaS platforms (single- or multi-tenant): tenancy models, and incident management.
• Hands-on engineering skills, particularly in:
• Python for service orchestration, platform development and ingestion
• REST API design and integration — building, securing, and maintaining user facing, service-to-service APIs
• Java languages (Java) for improvements and integrations of managed services.
• React/TypeScript for occasional Console UI enhancements
• Experience with metadata, catalog, or data pipeline systems: relational databases (PostgreSQL/MySQL), search engines (OpenSearch/Elasticsearch), and event logs (Kafka).
• Cloud and platform experience: Terraform/IaC, networking (VPC peering/BYOC), observability, and cost optimization.
• Security mindset: experience with access control, audit trails, GDPR, ISO, and SOC2 compliance.
• Product sense and delivery focus: ability to work iteratively with design partners and turn concepts into customer-ready services.

Nice to have:

• Contributions to open-source projects.
• Prior experience working in startups as one of the first hires or co-founder.
• Experience with policy-enforced access for queries (row/column filtering, masking).
• Familiarity with Aiven services like Kafka®, PostgreSQL®, OpenSearch®, ClickHouse®

Don’t worry if your experience doesn’t line up perfectly – we still encourage you to apply! We believe in investing in our crabs’ professional growth.

Our Offer

If you ask us what’s the best thing about working for Aiven, many will probably say it’s the high concentration of talent from around the world that we have here. Enjoy the agile environment of a hyperscale scale-up where you can truly make an impact and have fun while at it.

We invest in you

• Participate in Aiven’s equity plan.
• With Aiven locations spanning the globe, we want all of our crabs to find the right balance with our hybrid work policy.
• Get the equipment you need to set yourself up for success.
• Step up your career game with real employer support (use one of our learning platforms, annual learning budget, and more).
• Get holistic wellbeing support through our global Employee Assistance Program.

Make a difference at Aiven

• Contribute to open source projects that you find meaningful outside of work - and get paid for it! Our Plankton program recognizes extra work to the open source ecosystem for developers and non-developers alike.
• Use up to 5 days per year to volunteer for a good cause of your choice.
• Join one of our team member resource groups - empower yourself and others in missions that resonate with you.

What else?

• Your wellbeing matters: we provide extensive Occupational Health Care, Dental Care, as well as sports, culture, massage and lunch benefits
• Love breakfast? So do we! Join us at our regular office breakfast
• We also have you covered by statutory accident insurance

Amazing! What’s next?

Once applying you should hear from our Talent Experience team within 5 days regarding the status of your application. If you are selected to move forward you can generally expect 4 stages with us 

1. 30-45 minute call with one of our Talent Partners 
2. 45 minute Depth of Expertise Interview with the hiring manager 
3. Skills interview and or presentation for 1 hour with the wider team 
4. Company values interview for 1 hour 

How to Recognise and Avoid Employment Scams

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Here at Aiven, all of our emails relating to recruitment come from an @aiven.io, @greenhouse.io or @eu.greenhouse.io domain and all of our interviews are conducted over video call or in person, our interviews will never occur over text or chat. If you’re unsure of the legitimacy of a job opportunity/offer pertaining to Aiven, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at recruitment@aiven.io.

Equal Opportunities

Aiven provides equal employment opportunities to all qualified employees and applicants for employment without regard to age, gender identity, national or ethnic origin, religion, sexual orientation, physical and mental ability, marital and family status or without regard to any other similar personal attributes. Aiven complies with applicable local laws governing non-discrimination in employment in every location in which the company operates. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, training and any other terms and conditions related to employment.

At Aiven we are committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities or special needs in our working environment and job application procedures. We make all reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities or who otherwise need support to thrive in the workplace. We are committed to continuously improving workplace accessibility. There is an option to request a discussion in the application process but if you have any questions before applying please write to us at recruitment@aiven.io.