Summary
✨ AI‑Generated
A senior platform engineering role for a builder who owns substantial technical projects from problem definition and architecture through implementation, deployment, and ongoing ownership. You will build foundational infrastructure supporting advanced AI, data, and distributed workloads. The position is explicitly focused on engineering and platform building rather than traditional production operations, with five days per week onsite.
Highlights
Own substantial infrastructure projects end-to-end, from architecture through implementation and deployment. The role offers high individual ownership, close collaboration with software and applied science teams, and direct impact on advanced AI, data, and distributed workloads.
Description
Senior Platform Engineer — AI/ML Infrastructure & Reliability
San Francisco, CA | Onsite 5 Days/Week | Full-Time
$210,000–$260,000 Base + Equity
About the Company
Our client is a fast-growing San Francisco technology company building an advanced AI platform on high-performance distributed infrastructure.
The engineering organization is small and highly technical.
Engineers work closely with software teams, applied scientists, product, and leadership, with significant individual ownership and a short path from identifying a problem to deploying a production solution.
About the Role
We're looking for a senior platform engineer who is fundamentally a builder.
This is not a production operations role.
We're looking for someone who has personally owned substantial technical projects end-to-end:
Problem → architecture → implementation → deployment → ownership.
You'll build foundational platform and infrastructure capabilities supporting advanced AI, data, and distributed workloads.
Some projects will start with well-defined requirements; others will begin with an ambiguous technical problem that you will help define and solve.
The strongest candidates have experience in fast-growing startup environments, where engineers operate with significant autonomy, responsibilities are broad, and building from scratch is part of the job.
What You'll Do
Own platform and infrastructure projects from initial problem through productionDesign and build Kubernetes and container-based infrastructureDevelop internal tooling, automation, and platform softwareBuild reusable Infrastructure-as-Code and deployment systemsCreate CI/CD, GitOps, and developer self-service capabilitiesSolve technical problems across Linux, networking, storage, cloud, and distributed systemsBuild reliability and observability into systems from the beginningPartner directly with engineers, scientists, product teams, and technical leadershipOwn and evolve the systems you build after launch
What We're Looking For
8+ years in platform engineering, infrastructure engineering, production engineering, SRE, DevOps, systems engineering, or related software engineeringDirect experience owning significant technical projects end-to-endEvidence of building or substantially redesigning systems—not simply operating themStrong Linux and systems fundamentalsHands-on production Kubernetes experienceTerraform or comparable Infrastructure-as-Code expertisePython, Go, or comparable programming/automation experienceExperience building CI/CD, deployment automation, or developer-platform capabilitiesStrong troubleshooting and distributed-systems fundamentalsAbility to make architectural tradeoffs across performance, reliability, security, cost, and complexityComfort operating independently when requirements are incomplete or changing
These Skills Are a Plus
Fast-growing startup experienceFounding or early infrastructure/platform engineering experienceGPU, NVIDIA, or HPC infrastructureAI/ML training or inference infrastructureDistributed compute or high-throughput systemsKafka, Spark, Airflow, Ray, or DatabricksAdvanced networking or distributed storageInternal developer platformsGitOps, ArgoCD, Helm, or service mesh technologies
You'll Thrive Here If
You enjoy building more than maintaining.
You want meaningful technical ownership, are comfortable moving outside a narrow specialty, and don't need someone assigning your next ticket.
You can take an ambiguous problem, determine what needs to be built, evaluate the tradeoffs, design the solution, implement it, and take responsibility for the result.
Why Join
Build foundational systems rather than simply maintain existing infrastructureOwn technically meaningful projects from concept through productionWork on challenging AI, distributed-systems, data, and compute problemsJoin a small engineering organization where individual contributions matterWork directly with highly technical engineers, scientists, and leadership$210,000–$260,000 base salary plus equity
Work Authorization: Candidates must be currently authorized to work in the United States.
This position is not eligible for new or future employer-sponsored work authorization.
