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Introduction

Are you a skilled C/C++ developer with a passion for cutting-edge technologies in AI and observability with a growth mindset? This is an exciting opportunity to join the IBM Instana product team, working with industry-leading tools like Watsonx, OpenTelemetry, and eBPF.

As an Advisory Developer, you’ll bring deep technical expertise and a proactive, collaborative approach to solving complex engineering challenges. You’ll report directly to the Engineering Manager and contribute to the development and maintenance of core components, drive feature innovation, and engage with open-source communities. While this role doesn’t include formal leadership responsibilities from day one, we’re looking for individuals who demonstrate technical leadership, mentorship potential, and a strong sense of ownership.

We value developers who are laser-focused on quality and execution speed, and who thrive in a fast-paced, team-oriented environment. You should have a solid understanding of modern software engineering practices and be comfortable working closely with Product Managers, Team Leads, and fellow engineers.

 

If you're excited by innovation, open-source collaboration, and the opportunity to grow into a leadership role—let’s talk!

Your role and responsibilities

We’re seeking developers with strong C/C++ skills—Rust experience is a plus—to join our team working on either:

  • Tracing and profiling agents for various runtimes, or
  • Time series database technologies.

Depending on the focus area, the following expertise is valuable:

  • For tracing and profiling, familiarity with runtime APIs such as Java, PHP, or .NET is an asset, as is experience with eBPF and the Linux kernel.
  • For the database role, general knowledge of database internals is beneficial—topics like indexing, storage strategies, scaling, and consensus algorithms are especially relevant.

A background in working with GitHub and contributing to open-source projects will support our active involvement in OpenTelemetry and eBPF communities. You’ll be expected to understand the dynamics of these communities, including their contribution models, communication channels, governance structures, and tooling. Your contributions will include feature development and bug fixes that directly support our product goals.

Key Responsibilities:

 

  • Collaborate with Product Managers to plan and implement new features
  • Engage directly with customers for consulting and support-related tasks
  • Extend tracer and profiler capabilities by adding support for new libraries
  • Refactor and improve existing codebases with fresh ideas and approaches
  • Diagnose performance issues and implement efficient solutions
  • Actively contribute to open-source projects and participate in their communities
Required education
Bachelor's Degree
Preferred education
Bachelor's Degree
Required technical and professional expertise


  • 7+ years' experience with C / C++ or Rust and ability to lead others
  • Good code writing discipline and an eye for code efficiency
  • Strong analytical thinking and problem solving
  • Experience working with containerized development environment and runtimes (Docker, Kubernetes, etc.)
  • Understanding of agile methodologies
Preferred technical and professional experience
  • Experience with GitHub and contributing to open-source projects
  • profiling and tracing skills (pprof, JProfiler, etc.)
  • Familiarity with runtime APIs such as Java, PHP, or .NET is an asset,
  • knowledge of database internals is beneficial—topics like indexing, storage strategies, scaling, and consensus algorithms 

ABOUT BUSINESS UNIT

IBM Software infuses core business operations with intelligence—from machine learning to generative AI—to help make organizations more responsive, productive, and resilient. IBM Software helps clients put AI into action now to create real value with trust, speed, and confidence across digital labor, IT automation, application modernization, security, and sustainability. Critical to this is the ability to make use of all data, because AI is only as good as the data that fuels it. In most organizations data is spread across multiple clouds, on premises, in private datacenters, and at the edge. IBM’s AI and data platform scales and accelerates the impact of AI with trusted data, and provides leading capabilities to train, tune and deploy AI across business. IBM’s hybrid cloud platform is one of the most comprehensive and consistent approach to development, security, and operations across hybrid environments—a flexible foundation for leveraging data, wherever it resides, to extend AI deep into a business.

YOUR LIFE @ IBM

In a world where technology never stands still, we understand that, dedication to our clients success, innovation that matters, and trust and personal responsibility in all our relationships, lives in what we do as IBMers as we strive to be the catalyst that makes the world work better.

Being an IBMer means you’ll be able to learn and develop yourself and your career, you’ll be encouraged to be courageous and experiment everyday, all whilst having continuous trust and support in an environment where everyone can thrive whatever their personal or professional background.

 

Our IBMers are growth minded, always staying curious, open to feedback and learning new information and skills to constantly transform themselves and our company. They are trusted to provide on-going feedback to help other IBMers grow, as well as collaborate with colleagues keeping in mind a team focused approach to include different perspectives to drive exceptional outcomes for our customers. The courage our IBMers have to make critical decisions everyday is essential to IBM becoming the catalyst for progress, always embracing challenges with resources they have to hand, a can-do attitude and always striving for an outcome focused approach within everything that they do.

 

Are you ready to be an IBMer?

ABOUT IBM

IBM’s greatest invention is the IBMer. We believe that through the application of intelligence, reason and science, we can improve business, society and the human condition, bringing the power of an open hybrid cloud and AI strategy to life for our clients and partners around the world.

 

Restlessly reinventing since 1911, we are not only one of the largest corporate organizations in the world, we’re also one of the biggest technology and consulting employers, with many of the Fortune 500 companies relying on the IBM Cloud to run their business. 

 

At IBM, we pride ourselves on being an early adopter of artificial intelligence, quantum computing and blockchain. Now it’s time for you to join us on our journey to being a responsible technology innovator and a force for good in the world.

IBM is proud to be an equal-opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, pregnancy, disability, neurodivergence, age, or other characteristics protected by the applicable law. IBM is also committed to compliance with all fair employment practices regarding citizenship and immigration status.

OTHER RELEVANT JOB DETAILS

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