Senior Backend Engineer (Kubernetes)

TL;DR

Senior Backend Engineer (Kubernetes): Building and maintaining scalable control plane services and automation for AI cloud infrastructure with an accent on Kubernetes cluster lifecycle management and distributed systems. Focus on developing internal tools, APIs, and resilient systems to enable ML and AI teams to deploy and monitor inference services effectively.

Location: Must be based in San Francisco, CA (Hybrid: 4 days per week in office)

Salary: $225,000 – $300,000

Company

Lambda is a leader in AI cloud infrastructure, providing high-performance compute solutions to researchers, enterprises, and hyperscalers.

What you will do

• Design and maintain scalable control plane services, operators, and custom controllers for Kubernetes.
• Develop automation for cluster lifecycle management including provisioning, upgrades, and patching.
• Build internal tools, APIs, and CLIs to support ML and AI teams in deploying inference services.
• Define and implement SLOs and SLIs for platform services and workloads.
• Collaborate with HPC and Datacenter Ops teams to resolve low-level system and hardware issues.
• Participate in a sustainable on-call rotation.

Requirements

• Must be able to work from the San Francisco office 4 days per week.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field.
• 5+ years of experience as a Software Engineer.
• 1+ year of experience in distributed systems software development.
• Proficiency in Python, Go, Java, or C/C++.
• Experience with cloud-native technologies including Docker, Kubernetes, Helm, Etcd, and gRPC.
• Experience tuning Kubernetes configuration, Operators, CRDs, CSI, and CNI.

Culture & Benefits

• Generous cash and equity compensation packages.
• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision coverage for employees and dependents.
• 401k plan with 2% company match.
• Wellness and commuter stipends.
• Flexible paid time off policy.