VP of Engineering - Infinia

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.

  

"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

DataDirect Networks (DDN) is seeking an experienced and technically visionary Vice President of Engineering to lead the Infinia organization, which is the foundation of DDN’s flagship AI-native distributed data infrastructure.

 

This is a senior executive leadership role overseeing a global team of approximately 90 engineers, with direct responsibility for defining the storage platform strategy, scaling execution, and delivering performance-critical, fault-tolerant distributed systems that power AI/ML, HPC, and enterprise data pipelines at scale.

 

The ideal candidate will bring 15+ years of experience in systems and storage engineering, with a track record of building and scaling foundational platform components, and leading large, multi-team organizations in mission-critical environments. Deep expertise in storage systems and low-level infrastructure is essential.

 

This is a hands-on strategic leadership role with wide impact. You will shape how data is stored, accessed, and moved across DDN’s global customer base.

Key Responsibilities

Storage Platform & Systems Leadership Lead and grow engineering teams responsible for critical infrastructure underpinning the Infinia distributed data platform, including:

• Storage stack performance and optimization (including SPDK-based I/O)
• Task scheduling, concurrency, and orchestration
• Distributed locking and metadata coordination (DLM, KVStore)
• Multi-tenant data isolation and scalability (TDS)
• Network I/O and event-driven communication
• Reliability, observability, and profiling infrastructure
• Filesystem client access and high-throughput data paths

Strategic Direction & Technical Execution

• Define and execute the architectural vision for Infinia’s core platform, with a focus on scalable, performant, and highly available storage systems.
• Oversee roadmap development, cross-functional alignment, and high-quality execution across multiple teams.
• Ensure platform consistency, performance standards, and maintainability through rigorous design and technical reviews.

Organizational Scale & Talent Development

• Hire, coach, and retain top-tier engineering talent and technical leaders across multiple teams and geographies.
• Cultivate a high-performance engineering culture rooted in ownership, velocity, and system-level thinking.
• Guide career development, succession planning, and organizational evolution aligned to business and technology goals.

Cross-Functional Partnership

• Collaborate with product, customer success, SRE, and field teams to define platform requirements, feature priorities, and SLAs.
• Anticipate storage performance and scalability needs across workloads and customer use cases.
• Advocate for core platform investments that accelerate roadmap delivery and system resilience.

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