Software Engineer, Machine Lifecycle (Python/Ansible)

Location: New York, United States; hybrid working opportunities are available.

Annual base salary: $150,000–$250,000, plus eligibility for a discretionary bonus.

Company

Quantitative trading firm developing electronic trading infrastructure, market access, data, compute, research, and business support platforms.

What you will do

• Design and build an end-to-end machine lifecycle pipeline from power-on and network boot through operating system installation, configuration, validation, and production handoff.
• Automate hardware bring-up through BMC, Redfish, and IPMI, including firmware updates, BIOS settings, boot order, and inventory discovery.
• Automate PXE and UEFI HTTP boot provisioning and unattended operating system installation.
• Develop Python and Ansible automation to configure machines into their final roles and replace manual runbooks with versioned code.
• Apply GitOps and CI/CD practices, including desired state in Git, tested changes, staged rollouts, drift reconciliation, and auditable lifecycle transitions.
• Build health checks, stress tests, burn-in workflows, metrics, and logging while collaborating with HPC and datacenter teams.

Requirements

• Strong Python experience building automation, tooling, and services.
• Hands-on Ansible experience writing maintainable playbooks and roles.
• Solid understanding of CI/CD, testing, staged rollouts, and version-controlled change management.
• Working knowledge of Linux, including the boot process, system services, and troubleshooting machine startup issues.
• Automation-first and GitOps mindset with sound judgment around safe failures, retries, and audit trails.
• Clear communication skills and the ability to turn operational knowledge into documented automation.

Nice to have

• Experience with bare-metal provisioning tools such as MAAS, Tinkerbell, Foreman, Ironic, or equivalent systems.
• Familiarity with BMC, Redfish, IPMI, iDRAC, or iLO.
• Experience with hardware validation, stress testing, firmware qualification, or failure prediction at fleet scale.
• Experience with GitOps tooling or declarative infrastructure management.
• Background in datacenter, HPC, or large-fleet environments.

Culture & Benefits

• Collaborative, results-oriented workplace with an open-concept office and no unnecessary hierarchy.
• Generous paid time off and regional savings and financial wellness plans.
• Hybrid working opportunities and daily breakfast, lunch, and snacks.
• Wellness reimbursements, in-office wellness experiences, sports teams, fitness events, and charitable giving.
• Workshops, continuous learning opportunities, social events, and team celebrations.