Principal Storage Engineer

Principal Storage Engineer

Position Summary

We are seeking a highly skilled and experienced Principal Storage Engineer to serve as a technical leader responsible for the design, engineering, automation, reliability, and lifecycle management of enterprise storage platforms. This role provides technical leadership across SAN, NAS, storage networking, storage fabrics, backup and recovery, performance engineering, and infrastructure modernization initiatives.

The ideal candidate possesses deep expertise in enterprise storage technologies, Fiber Channel SAN architectures, NAS platforms, storage networking, and large-scale infrastructure operations. This individual will drive architectural decisions, establish engineering standards, mentor senior engineers, and lead strategic initiatives that enhance availability, scalability, resiliency, security, and operational efficiency across the storage ecosystem.

What We Do

Our Infrastructure Engineering organization designs, builds, operates, and modernizes highly available storage platforms that support mission-critical business applications and cloud services. Our environment includes:

Enterprise SAN and Fiber Channel fabrics

NAS storage platforms

Block and file storage solutions

Storage networking and multipathing

Data protection and disaster recovery solutions

Storage performance and capacity engineering

Infrastructure automation and observability

Hybrid cloud storage integrations

The team partners closely with Platform Engineering, Cloud Infrastructure, Network Engineering, Security, Operations, and Application Development organizations to ensure reliable and scalable storage services.

What You'll Do

Architecture & Technical Leadership

Lead the design and strategic direction of enterprise storage platforms and services.

Define architecture standards, engineering patterns, and operational best practices.

Evaluate emerging storage technologies and recommend modernization strategies.

Serve as the highest-level technical escalation point for complex storage issues.

Drive storage transformation initiatives across on-premises and hybrid cloud environments.

SAN & Storage Fabric Engineering

Design, implement, and support large-scale Fiber Channel SAN infrastructures.

Engineer highly available storage fabric architectures with redundant paths and fault-tolerant designs.

Manage SAN zoning, host connectivity, multipathing configurations, and fabric optimization.

Lead storage migrations, technology refreshes, and lifecycle management initiatives.

Ensure storage platforms meet enterprise performance and resiliency requirements.

NAS & File Services

Design and support enterprise NAS solutions supporting NFS, SMB, and file-based workloads.

Define storage allocation, data lifecycle management, and tiering strategies.

Optimize file service performance, availability, and scalability.

Develop standards for enterprise file storage consumption and operational support.

Storage Networking

Collaborate with network engineering teams on storage transport design and connectivity.

Optimize storage network performance, throughput, and latency.

Troubleshoot complex storage-to-host communication issues.

Define standards for storage network security, segmentation, and resiliency.

Storage Performance Engineering

Analyze IOPS, latency, throughput, and workload characteristics across enterprise environments.

Conduct proactive performance assessments and capacity modeling.

Identify bottlenecks and implement remediation strategies.

Drive performance benchmarking and optimization efforts.

Establish monitoring dashboards, KPIs, and service health metrics.

Automation & Infrastructure as Code

Develop automation solutions for storage provisioning, reporting, monitoring, and lifecycle management.

Leverage APIs, scripting, and infrastructure automation frameworks to reduce manual operations.

Standardize operational processes through automation and self-service capabilities.

Drive continuous improvement across engineering and operational workflows.

Reliability, Availability & Recovery

Design disaster recovery and business continuity strategies for storage platforms.

Lead recovery testing, failover exercises, and resiliency assessments.

Ensure backup, replication, and data protection capabilities meet business requirements.

Participate in major incident response and root cause analysis activities.

Governance & Security

Ensure compliance with enterprise security, audit, and regulatory requirements.

Collaborate with cybersecurity teams on storage hardening initiatives.

Define access control models and secure data storage practices.

Support risk assessments and remediation planning.

Mentorship & Leadership

Mentor senior engineers and technical leads.

Provide architectural guidance across infrastructure and platform organizations.

Lead design reviews, technical forums, and engineering governance efforts.

Influence long-term technology roadmaps and strategic investments.

Required Qualifications

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or related discipline, or equivalent experience.

12+ years of experience managing enterprise storage environments.