Principal Engineer - Agentic Data Plane

Redpanda is pioneering the Agentic Data Plane (ADP) - a new category in AI infrastructure that makes it simple and secure to connect AI agents with enterprise data and systems. Built on a multi-modal data streaming engine, Redpanda empowers agentic applications that reason and act in real-time with speed, autonomy, and precision.Global leaders including Activision Blizzard, Cisco, Moody's, Texas Instruments, Vodafone and 2 of the top 5 banks in the U.S. rely on Redpanda to process hundreds of terabytes of data a day.Backed by premier venture investors Lightspeed, GV and Haystack VC, Redpanda is a diverse, people-first organization with teams distributed around the globe.About The RoleWe're looking for a Principal Software Engineer to help architect and build Redpanda's Agentic Data Plane (ADP), the control and execution layer that powers how AI agents safely interact with real-world data across the technological sprawl of the modern enterprise. Redpanda’s Agentic Data Plane enables intelligent agents to autonomously access, reason over, and act on enterprise data in real time, while providing their human counterparts with the visibility and control to ensure and validate that they do so securely. It combines Redpanda’s industry-leading low-latency streaming layer, a distributed query engine for real-time context, 300+ connectors for seamless data integration, and a global policy and observability framework that enforces access, records intent, and enables replayable audits.You'll work on identifying and integrating the next generation of ADP capabilities as the agentic AI landscape evolves, translating emerging research and industry shifts into concrete engineering proposals and product bets. You'll partner closely across Engineering, with our Product and GTM teams, as well as directly with strategic customers to shape the product’s architecture and directionYou WillTrack emerging research, frameworks, and industry developments in the agentic AI space, and translate the most relevant signals into concrete engineering proposals and product betsIdentify, prototype, and deliver high-leverage emerging capabilities for ADP, in partnership with the broader team Define architectural patterns for new ADP capabilities, ensuring they integrate cleanly with the existing runtime, policy, and observability layersEngage directly with strategic customers and the field to stress-test new capabilities against real enterprise deployment scenariosServe as a technical ambassador for ADP externally, publishing research, writing engineering blog posts, and speaking at conferences to establish Redpanda's credibility at the frontier of agentic infrastructureParticipate in on-call and help drive down operational toil, improving system observability and self-healing capabilities over timeYou Have10+ years of software engineering experience, with a demonstrated track record of leading the design and delivery of complex, large-scale distributed systemsExperience building or contributing to emerging areas of agentic AI infrastructure, e.g. eval frameworks, orchestration layers, context management, AI gateways, or similarFluency with AI-assisted development at the level of agentic orchestration, i.e. composing multi-agent coding workflows with subagents to dramatically accelerate research and prototypingDeep expertise in at least one systems language (Go preferred) and comfort working across the stackUnderstanding of streaming data systems, messaging infrastructure, or data plane/control plane architectures, experience with Apache Kafka or Redpanda is a plusExperience designing and operating systems that enforce access control, policy, and auditability at scale Self-directed, strong written communicator, comfortable collaborating asynchronously in GitHub, Slack, and Google DocsExcellent interpersonal and communication skills. Able to lead without authority across engineering teams and engage credibly with technical customers and external audiencesNice To HaveFamiliarity with AI safety, alignment, or responsible AI research as it applies to autonomous systems in enterprise environmentsExperience with protocol buffers, protoreflect and codegenBackground in security, identity, or data governance systems relevant to enterprise environmentsExperience running Kafka/Redpanda and/or Postgres at scaleExperience with Kubernetes and cloud-native infrastructure across AWS, GCP, or AzurePrior experience in an early-stage or growth-stage startup, especially in a category-defining product areaU.S. base salary range for this role is $245,000 - $290,000. Our salary ranges are determined by role, level, and location. As a remote-first company, we strive to consider each candidate's job-related skills, location, experience, relevant education or training to determine individual base salary. Your talent partner will share more about the specific salary range for your preferred location during the hiring process.Join Redpanda if you’d enjoy being part of a fast-moving, diverse, people-first organization with team members around the globe and a culture based on trust, transparency, communication, and kindness.When you apply to a job on this site, the personal data contained in your application will be collected by Redpanda Data, Inc. (“Controller”), which is located at 5758 Geary Blvd, #153 San Francisco, CA 94121 and can be contacted by emailing legal@redpanda.com. Your personal data will be processed for the purposes of managing Controller’s recruitment related activities, which include setting up and conducting interviews and tests for applicants, evaluating and assessing the results thereto, and as is otherwise needed in the recruitment and hiring processes. Such processing is legally permissible under Art. 6(1)(f) of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (General Data Protection Regulation) as necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by the Controller, which are the solicitation, evaluation, and selection of applicants for employment.Your personal data will be shared with Greenhouse Software, Inc., a cloud services provider located in the United States of America and engaged by Controller to help manage its recruitment and hiring process on Controller’s behalf. Accordingly, if you are located outside of the United States, your personal data will be transferred to the United States once you submit it through this site. Because the European Union Commission has determined that United States data privacy laws do not ensure an adequate level of protection for personal data collected from EU data subjects, the transfer will be subject to appropriate additional safeguards under the standard contractual clauses or another legally recognized manner. You can obtain a copy of the standard contractual clauses by contacting us at legal@redpanda.com.Your personal data will be retained by Controller as long as Controller determines it is necessary to evaluate your application for employment. Under the GDPR, you have the right to request access to your personal data, to request that your personal data be rectified or erased, and to request that processing of your personal data be restricted. You also have the right to data portability. In addition, you may lodge a complaint with an EU supervisory authority.