Engineering Manager, Cloud Storage Integrations

Hi I’m Nikolay, leading the technical organization at StorPool. How do you feel about weaving a cutting-edge distributed storage system seamlessly into the fabric of diverse cloud ecosystems? What if your role was less about chasing tickets and more about empowering engineers to become experts in multiple cloud platforms, driving StorPool’s adoption by making it feel native everywhere? If guiding a team to bridge complex systems, contribute back to communities, and remain deeply technical sounds like your kind of challenge, read on. I’m looking for an Engineering Manager with a strong software development background and a passion for systems integration to lead our crucial Integrations team at StorPool.

Why StorPool Engineering is Different

StorPool wasn’t started because “software-defined storage” was a buzzword – it wasn’t yet, back in 2011. It was started because customers repeatedly told us storage was their biggest problem: too complex, too expensive, and very difficult to scale. Over 10 years later, StorPool is one of the few cash-flow positive, self-funded storage vendors in the world and growing rapidly. This wasn’t luck; it was about tackling a genuinely hard technical problem with a determined, expert team focused on a clear vision: all data storage should run on a multitude of standard servers (distributed), controlled by intelligent storage software. We believe this is technically and economically the best way – How Storage Should Be.

This journey fundamentally shaped our engineering culture. Being self-funded and profitable isn’t just a financial footnote; it directly enables a culture built on:

• Deep Ownership: We believe engineers thrive when they own problems end-to-end. In the world of integrations, this means not just understanding StorPool deeply, but also developing genuine empathy for how customers use various Cloud Management Platforms (CMPs) and Kubernetes, understanding their workflows, and ensuring our integrations solve their real-world problems. Engineers here make product decisions, informed by deep technical understanding and customer needs.
• Pragmatic Results: Our independence means we focus relentlessly on building real, lasting value and making customers genuinely successful and happy (our customer satisfaction scores reflect this!). We aren’t chasing the next funding round or vanity metrics; we’re focused on overcoming obstacles and delivering robust integrations that make StorPool the best block storage solution for building public and private clouds. This stability allows for long-term thinking and sustainable development practices.
• Continuous Improvement: We are driven by the belief that we can always get better, every single day. This applies equally to our cutting-edge product and our internal processes, including how we build, test, and deploy integrations across multiple complex platforms. We constantly challenge assumptions and push the limits of what’s possible in storage technology and its ecosystem integration.

Your Role: Making StorPool Native in Cloud Management Platforms

Your mission is to lead and grow the team responsible for StorPool’s seamless integration with the key cloud management platforms and orchestration tools that our customers rely on. This isn’t just about writing plugins; it’s about ensuring StorPool feels like a native, high-performance, ultra-reliable storage option within each ecosystem (like Kubernetes, OpenStack, VMware, OpenNebula, CloudStack, and Proxmox VE), enabling customers to leverage our full potential via their chosen tools and workflows through our API-first design.

This role requires a blend of three key areas, with a significant emphasis on your direct technical contribution and leadership within the integrations space:

• Technical Contribution – Integrations Focus (~50%): You will remain deeply hands-on, dedicating roughly half your time to direct technical work. This includes writing and reviewing code and RFCs (Requests for Comments) for integration solutions, associated testing frameworks, and potentially shared libraries or tooling. You’ll actively participate in one relevant online community (e.g., Kubernetes SIG Storage, OpenStack Cinder development list, etc.) to build StorPool’s brand, gather insights directly from the ecosystem, and lead by example for your team. Furthermore, you will facilitate the definition of a technical vision for cross-CMP alignment – identifying shared challenges, potential reusable components, or strategic directions across our different integrations to improve consistency and efficiency. Your technical depth across diverse systems is crucial for guiding the team effectively.
• People Leadership (~25%): Your core focus is coaching engineers to reach their full potential within the complex domain of cloud platform integrations. This involves managing performance rigorously but fairly through regular feedback and deep biannual reviews. It also includes fostering meaningful career growth, actively transferring specialized knowledge, and guiding engineers with leadership aspirations to align their development with company goals. Furthermore, it encompasses defining effective onboarding processes for new integration engineers and ensuring team well-being and motivation. A key aspect will be mentoring team members to effectively contribute to relevant online communities, boosting both their growth and StorPool’s visibility.
• Team Leadership (~25%): You’ll ensure your team delivers impactful results across all integration points. This requires providing deep product context – why customers choose specific CMPs, how StorPool fits into their architecture, and the real-world impact of integration features or bugs within that specific ecosystem. You will define and champion a clear team charter, building a shared understanding across the company of why the Integrations team exists as a cohesive unit and how it delivers unique value beyond individual platform expertise. You’ll oversee delivery and manage risks. You’ll foster engineer-driven decision-making, drive continuous process improvement, define and track team OKRs and metrics, and play a key role in hiring exceptional talent.

Why You Should or Shouldn’t Apply

Engineering Leadership comes in many flavors, not all of which fit our model. I thought I’d outline some things I’m looking for to help you decide if this fits what you’re looking for:

You Should Apply If:

• You have a strong technical background in software development, ideally with experience in virtualization, APIs, distributed systems, storage, networking, or specific cloud management platforms (like Kubernetes, OpenStack, VMware, etc.).
• You are genuinely passionate about building, coaching, and developing high-performing engineering teams tackling complex, multi-platform challenges.
• You enjoy and excel at being deeply technically engaged, fully embracing the expectation to spend approximately 50% of your time on hands-on coding, design reviews, RFCs, and technical strategy within the integrations domain.
• You are excited by the prospect of leading by example through active, meaningful contributions to relevant open-source or technical communities.
• You hold yourself and your team to exceptionally high standards of quality, reliability, and performance – absolutely critical when our software becomes part of diverse external systems where end-to-end data integrity is paramount. You don’t shy away from direct, constructive feedback.
• You are an excellent and empathetic communicator and facilitator, capable of providing deep product context, navigating diverse technical ecosystems, defining team purpose, and aligning teams towards common goals.
• You resonate with our mission to build genuinely better storage solutions that solve significant customer problems, and you appreciate the stability, focus, and long-term perspective of a profitable, self-funded company building for the future.

You Shouldn’t Apply If:

• You strongly prefer a hands-off management role and do not want to dedicate roughly half your time to direct technical contributions like coding, code reviews, and technical design.
• Your primary drive is making the final technical or product decisions, rather than empowering and coaching your team to leverage their expertise and make the best calls.
• You view integration work as simple “plug-in development” rather than complex systems engineering requiring deep architectural understanding, robust testing, and uncompromising quality standards.
• You believe rigid, top-down processes or standard agile ceremonies (like sprint planning meticulously managed by the EM) are essential for any team’s success; we value flexibility and engineer-driven approaches tailored to the work.
• You’re primarily looking for the rapid scaling, high-burn environment often found in VC-backed startups, rather than a stable, profitable, product-focused company building sustainable growth.
• You view staff or principal engineers primarily as architects detached from code or as project managers, rather than deep technical contributors, mentors, and drivers of technical excellence.
• You’re not optimistic or convinced that we can maintain a high-ownership, high-quality engineering culture as we grow, believing that standard, more restrictive processes are inevitable.
• You are not interested in or comfortable with actively engaging in external technical communities as part of your leadership role.

What We’re Building at StorPool (And Why Seamless Integration is Key)

Data fuels everything today. Any human activity generates and relies on vast amounts of important data. Improving data storage, management, and security leads to a better world and a better life – that’s our core belief. Yet, traditional enterprise storage often remains a major bottleneck – complex, expensive, inflexible, and difficult to manage at scale.

StorPool Storage replaces outdated SANs, all-flash arrays (AFA), and other inefficient storage products. We developed our block-level, distributed storage software from the ground up to be arguably the fastest and most efficient software-defined storage solution on the market. It leverages standard servers, turning them into a shared storage system that delivers:

• Extreme Performance: Latency often under 100μs (0.1 milliseconds) and capable of millions of IOPS per cluster. We’re so efficient that the laws of physics (network/drive latency) often become the main latency contributor.
• Massive Scalability: Scale from tens of terabytes (TB) up to 60 petabytes (60PB) in a single cluster, adding capacity and performance linearly and non-disruptively.
• Bulletproof Reliability: Unique end-to-end data integrity algorithms ensure the data written is the data read back, regardless of hardware/software issues. We offer 99.999% uptime (five-nines availability), including maintenance, often delivered as a fully managed solution with 24/7/365 monitoring.
• Agility & Efficiency: Runs on standard servers and common Linux distributions (Oracle Linux, RHEL clones, Ubuntu, Debian). Features an API-first design, Quality of Service (QoS), instant snapshots, backup/DR capabilities, and significantly lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) compared to traditional solutions.

Key Integration Platforms:

• Kubernetes – Provide persistent, stateful, high-performance block storage via a native CSI (Container Storage Interface) driver.
• OpenStack – Offer reliable, scalable block storage through a Cinder driver, supporting large-scale cloud deployments.
• VMware – Deliver high-performance, reliable storage for vSphere environments using unique parallel iSCSI technology.
• OpenNebula – Integrate as a native datastore driver, enabling automated VM disk management within OpenNebula.
• CloudStack – Provide seamless block storage management through the CloudStack UI, CLI, and API interfaces.
• Proxmox VE – Enable full storage lifecycle management (VM disks, snapshots, clones) directly within the Proxmox GUI.

Crucially, StorPool’s power is fully unlocked when it integrates seamlessly into the environments our customers already use. This is where the Integrations team comes in. Our value proposition as the best block storage solution when building public and private clouds hinges on making StorPool easily consumable and manageable within existing workflows. Your team ensures that customers using leading platforms can leverage StorPool’s performance and reliability natively, automating tasks like volume provisioning, attachment, snapshots, resizing, and more, directly through their chosen cloud management platform’s interface.

Ready for the Challenge?

If this sounds like the challenge and environment you’re looking for – one that blends deep technical engagement, strategic community leadership, dedicated people development, and contributing to a stable, mission-driven company – then I’d love to hear from you. Please apply and tell us a bit about why you think you’d be a great fit for this specific Engineering Manager, Cloud Storage Integrations role, touching on your experience with relevant technologies, your approach to technical leadership, and why StorPool’s unique culture resonates with you.