Lead the architecture and development of AI infrastructure for cloud services, focusing on distributed systems, operational excellence, and collaboration with cross-functional teams.
Dive in and do the best work of your career at DigitalOcean. Journey alongside a strong community of top talent who are relentless in their drive to build the simplest scalable cloud. If you have a growth mindset, naturally like to think big and bold, and are energized by the fast-paced environment of a true industry disruptor, you’ll find your place here. We value winning together—while learning, having fun, and making a profound difference for the dreamers and builders in the world.
We are seeking a Senior Engineer 2 to play a key role in our AI Infrastructure Control Plane team. This team's mission is to orchestrate and operate compute fleet, storage and networking for running AI workloads - inference, training, fine-tuning - at scale. In this high-impact role, you will be a primary technical architect and leader, responsible for building the foundational control plane services that power our large Gen AI model hosting infrastructure.
This is a hands-on role, requiring you to be able to develop high quality software while availing of all the productivity boosts granted by the latest AI coding agents. You will bridge the gap between high-scale distributed systems and specialized AI inference orchestration to ensure our global platform remains simple, reliable, and accessible for developers building the next generation of AI applications.
- Architectural Leadership: Drive the design and development of distributed services within our AI Infrastructure ecosystem, including complex orchestration for LLM inference and hosting services. Your focus will be the control plane orchestration of compute, networking, and storage for AI workloads.
- System Design: Create, refine, and assess system design proposals for our high-scale, multi-tenant inference cloud ecosystem, ensuring they meet rigorous standards for availability and resiliency.
- Operational Excellence: Lead the operational strategy for critical services, defining SLOs and leveraging advanced observability to maintain platform health in a high-scale environment.
- Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner deeply with Product Management, TPMs, and Engineering Management peers to align technical roadmaps with business priorities.
- Strategic Growth: Work on new architecture initiatives that enable fleet optimization and help evolve DigitalOcean into a market leader for AI-native networking and infrastructure.
- Distributed Systems Mastery: Deep experience with distributed and cloud services, including messaging systems, databases, and infrastructure as code, observability, and security.
- Cloud Infrastructure Expertise: Advanced knowledge of cloud networking (VPCs, Load Balancers), containerization (Kubernetes), and cloud storage (block, object, NFS). Deep networking software experience (VLAN, RDMA, Ethernet, L3-L7 network protocols, etc) would be a plus.
- AI/ML Domain Knowledge: Proven experience building AI/ML products, specifically focusing on Gen AI platforms, LLM hosting, and inference workflows.
- Operational Track Record: Significant experience running customer-facing, high-availability services across multiple regions.
- Open Source Engagement: Experience integrating and building with open-source software and a bias for technical ownership.
- Software Engineering: Expert proficiency in GoLang or Python and familiarity with gRPC for service-to-service communication.
- $139,200.00 - $174,000.00
*This is a remote role
JR: 2026-7623
#LI-Remote
Why You’ll Like Working for DigitalOcean
- We innovate with purpose. You’ll be a part of a cutting-edge technology company with an upward trajectory, who are proud to simplify cloud and AI so builders can spend more time creating software that changes the world. As a member of the team, you will be a Shark who thinks big, bold, and scrappy, like an owner with a bias for action and a powerful sense of responsibility for customers, products, employees, and decisions.
- We prioritize career development. At DO, you’ll do the best work of your career. You will work with some of the smartest and most interesting people in the industry. We are a high-performance organization that will always challenge you to think big. Our organizational development team will provide you with resources to ensure you keep growing. We provide employees with reimbursement for relevant conferences, training, and education. All employees have access to LinkedIn Learning's 10,000+ courses to support their continued growth and development.
- We care about your well-being. Regardless of your location, we will provide you with a competitive array of benefits to support you from our Employee Assistance Program to Local Employee Meetups to flexible time off policy, to name a few. While the philosophy around our benefits is the same worldwide, specific benefits may vary based on local regulations and preferences.
- We reward our employees. The salary range for this position is based on market data, relevant years of experience, and skills. You may qualify for a bonus in addition to base salary; bonus amounts are determined based on company and individual performance. We also provide equity compensation to eligible employees, including equity grants upon hire and the option to participate in our Employee Stock Purchase Program.
- DigitalOcean is an equal-opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, ancestry, national origin, caste, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or expression, age, disability, medical condition, pregnancy, genetic makeup, marital status, or military service.
Application Limit: You may apply to a maximum of 3 positions within any 180-day period. This policy promotes better role-candidate matching and encourages thoughtful applications where your qualifications align most strongly.
Top Skills
Go
Grpc
Kubernetes
Python
Similar Jobs at DigitalOcean
Artificial Intelligence • Cloud • Software • Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
The Senior Engineer 2 will lead the design and development of AI Inference Data Plane services, focusing on system architecture, performance optimization, and mentoring junior engineers.
Top Skills:
GoGrpcLlm-DModularNvidia DynamoNvlinkPythonRay ServeRoceSglangVllmXgmi
Artificial Intelligence • Cloud • Software • Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
Lead engineering for internal technologies at DigitalOcean, focusing on AI integration and enhancing productivity through strategic architecture and platform development.
Top Skills:
AICloud-Based SystemsCybersecurityLlms
Artificial Intelligence • Cloud • Software • Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
Design, build, and operate observability platforms (logging, metrics, tracing) by integrating and running OpenSearch, VictoriaMetrics, Kafka, and ClickHouse. Implement features to improve operability, guide engineers on usage, operate Kubernetes at operator level, write software in Go, and maintain CI/CD with Terraform/Ansible/GitHub Actions. Participate in a 24/7 on-call rotation and support internal users.
Top Skills:
AnsibleClickhouseGithub ActionsGoKafkaKubernetesOpensearchTerraformVictoriametrics
What you need to know about the Boston Tech Scene
Boston is a powerhouse for technology innovation thanks to world-class research universities like MIT and Harvard and a robust pipeline of venture capital investment. Host to the first telephone call and one of the first general-purpose computers ever put into use, Boston is now a hub for biotechnology, robotics and artificial intelligence — though it’s also home to several B2B software giants. So it’s no surprise that the city consistently ranks among the greatest startup ecosystems in the world.
Key Facts About Boston Tech
- Number of Tech Workers: 269,000; 9.4% of overall workforce (2024 CompTIA survey)
- Major Tech Employers: Thermo Fisher Scientific, Toast, Klaviyo, HubSpot, DraftKings
- Key Industries: Artificial intelligence, biotechnology, robotics, software, aerospace
- Funding Landscape: $15.7 billion in venture capital funding in 2024 (Pitchbook)
- Notable Investors: Summit Partners, Volition Capital, Bain Capital Ventures, MassVentures, Highland Capital Partners
- Research Centers and Universities: MIT, Harvard University, Boston College, Tufts University, Boston University, Northeastern University, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, National Bureau of Economic Research, Broad Institute, Lowell Center for Space Science & Technology, National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories
