Principal Infrastructure Engineer
San Francisco, California, United States of America
Contract
2 weeks ago
Key skills
MLSnowflakeDatabricksAWSAzureGoogle CloudTerraformKubernetesDockerEKSAKSGKECloudFormationPrometheusIstioLinkerdSaaSCI/CDCloud Security
About this role
Title: Principal Infrastructure Engineer
San Francisco, CA - Hybrid
The role
As a Principal Infrastructure Engineer, you will lead the design and automation of how Nextdata OS is provisioned and operated across environments-primarily managed Kubernetes, often in customer-owned cloud accounts.
You will work on systems that directly shape how data mesh is adopted in practice.
You will bring experience building and operating large-scale distributed systems, including data and ML infrastructure, to help deliver a secure, self-service platform for data product teams.
You will:
- Design and implement deployment models for PaaS, SaaS, and customer-managed environments
- Build scalable, modular infrastructure-as-code and maintain high code quality through reviews
- Work closely with customers to understand real-world constraints and requirements
- Collaborate with product and engineering to evolve the platform
- Take ownership of what you ship, including production reliability
You are the right fit if you have
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field
- 8+ years of experience in infrastructure engineering
- Experience and willingness to work directly with customers
- Experience working in early-stage or growing startups, shaping infrastructure from the ground up
- Strong experience with Kubernetes-based systems and multi-cloud environments
- Experience building and maintaining CI/CD systems for cloud-native applications
- Hands-on experience deploying and operating PaaS and SaaS platforms at scale
- Experience with data and ML ecosystems across platforms such as Snowflake, Databricks, AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud Platform
- A track record of managing infrastructure cost and performance trade-offs
- Experience contributing to or leading security reviews and audits
- Strong troubleshooting skills and a focus on reliability
Technical depth in:
- Kubernetes (EKS, GKE, AKS) and containerization (Docker)
- Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, CloudFormation)
- Cloud networking (AWS VPC, Azure VNet, Google Cloud Platform VPC)
- Observability tools (Prometheus, ELK or similar)
- Service meshes (Istio, Linkerd)
- Cloud security practices