Mgr, Software Engineer

Job Summary

As an Open Source Engineering Manager, you will lead the Open Source Contributions team and help ensure NetApp Instaclustr remains influential across key open source ecosystems, including Cassandra, OpenSearch, Kafka, and Cadence.

You will drive contribution strategies that create customer value, strengthen the platform, and increase NetApp's impact within the communities that matter most. Working closely with Product, Engineering, Developer Relations, Support, and Marketing, you will help translate customer and business needs into meaningful upstream contributions and community engagement.

This role offers the opportunity to shape open source direction, influence project roadmaps, and build strong relationships with maintainers, contributors, and foundations. You will mentor a globally distributed team, establish measurable goals, and ensure contributions deliver improvements in reliability, performance, and user experience for the Instaclustr platform.

What will you do?

• Lead, mentor, and grow a distributed team of open source engineers.
• Define and execute the open source engagement strategy and team OKRs.
• Partner with Product Management to bring community feedback into product planning.
• Collaborate with Product, Engineering, and Support to resolve complex issues involving upstream projects.
• Represent NetApp within strategic open source communities, foundations, and working groups.
• Build relationships with maintainers and influence project direction and governance.
• Track team objectives, delivery plans, risks, budgets, and resource allocation.
• Drive hiring, onboarding, performance management, coaching, and career development.
• Foster a culture of collaboration, innovation, inclusion, and continuous improvement.
• Promote best practices for community participation and open source contributions.
• Encourage adoption of AI tools and practices that improve team productivity.
• Provide regular executive updates and stakeholder communications.
• Participate in community discussions, technical forums, and industry events.

Team Culture

The Open Source Engagement team consists of passionate individuals dedicated to helping open source communities thrive while delivering value to customers. The team is collaborative, globally distributed, and committed to authenticity, innovation, and continuous learning.

This role requires up to 10% travel, including occasional international travel.

Job Requirements

• 8+ years of relevant industry experience.
• 3+ years of people management or leadership experience.
• Strong understanding of open source development models, communities, and licensing.
• Experience working with distributed engineering teams.
• Ability to review code and understand modern software development workflows.
• Familiarity with development tools such as Git, CI/CD pipelines, and IDEs.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Experience collaborating across Product Management, Engineering, Support, and Developer Relations teams.
• Ability to influence without authority and build relationships across technical communities.
• Knowledge of AI tools and practical AI use cases.
• Working knowledge of cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud.
• Strong organizational, planning, and prioritization skills.
• Ability to work independently in a globally distributed environment.
• Comfortable with asynchronous communication and remote collaboration.
• Willingness to participate in occasional meetings outside normal working hours to support a global team.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience contributing to or leading open source projects or communities.
• Familiarity with projects such as Cassandra, OpenSearch, Kafka, Cadence, or similar technologies.
• Knowledge of storage technologies, including object, block, and file storage.
• Experience representing organizations within foundations, steering committees, or working groups.
• Experience defining and managing OKRs, strategy execution, and team metrics.

At NetApp, we embrace a hybrid working environment designed to strengthen connection, collaboration, and culture for all employees. This means that most roles will have some level of in-office and/or in-person expectations, which will be shared during the recruitment process.

Equal Opportunity Employer:

NetApp is firmly committed to Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) and to compliance with all federal, state and local laws that prohibit employment discrimination based on age, race, color, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, religion, disability or genetic information, pregnancy, protected veteran status, and any other protected classification.

Why You'll Thrive at NetApp

At NetApp, you won't wait for the perfect moment-you'll make it. The early planning, the extra thought, the bold idea that turns good into great: That's how our people operate and how we continue to push the boundaries of data infrastructure.

NetApp is the trusted partner for organizations transforming data into opportunity. As the only enterprise-grade storage service natively embedded in Google Cloud, AWS, and Microsoft Azure, we empower customers to run everything from traditional workloads to enterprise AI with unmatched performance, resilience, and security.

Our culture

We celebrate mold breakers, bold thinkers, and problem solvers. We reward initiative, impact, and ownership. We provide flexibility so you can balance professional ambition with your personal life. Here, differences are not just welcomed-they drive everything we do.

If you're ready to innovate, rise to the challenge, and own every moment - make your next move your best one.