Principal Infrastructure Engineer / Tech Lead

Location
San Francisco
Workplace
On-site
Compensation
$200k – $250k + equity

About this role

What we're looking for:

We need an experienced infrastructure engineer with 7+ years of experience who has led infrastructure projects and is comfortable building and scaling cloud systems (AWS preferred) in a fast-paced startup environment. You should have strong CS fundamentals, Python proficiency, and a track record of owning critical infrastructure end-to-end. Bonus points if you have familiarity with ML workflows or MLOps.

What you'll do:

Own and scale the cloud infrastructure (AWS) that powers custom AI model training and inference for enterprise customers

Design and maintain reliable deployment processes, CI/CD pipelines, and infrastructure-as-code for getting models and services into production

Manage GPU allocation, instance sizing, and cost optimization across cloud resources

Build monitoring, logging, and automated testing infrastructure that gives the team visibility into what's running, failing, and why

Own data and ML ops including ETL pipelines from varied customer data sources, model versioning, and lifecycle management

Drive security engineering including data isolation between customers, infrastructure hardening, and SOC2 compliance

Mentor and partner with the existing infrastructure engineer to raise the bar for the team

What happens next

Skip the application pile. I get you in front of the people who decide.

Confirm the fit

A few questions to make sure this role is the right shape for you. Two minutes.

I pitch you to the company

I write the intro, send it to the founder, and handle the back-and-forth.

A meeting lands on your calendar

When the company wants to meet, I get the call on your calendar. You just show up.

Culture & values

Team consists of AI PhDs, professors, and technologists from MIT, Stanford, Google, Palantir, and Snowflake

Engineers are hands-on builders who think clearly and add value beyond delegation

Early-stage energy with Series B funding but Series A startup team size and impact per person

Team moves quickly and ships with confidence

Everyone is expected to be hands-on and contribute directly

Works together 5 days a week at San Francisco HQ fostering tight collaboration and rapid decision-making

Team embraces AI tools for development while maintaining strong engineering fundamentals

Intentionally small and exceptionally high-caliber team of 17 people

Plans to grow thoughtfully as the company scales

Know someone who'd be great for this?