Principal Engineer, Storage Services

Nscale; Greater London; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive compensation package including base, bonus, and equity

Flexible working environment

Performance reviews every 12 months

Job summary

A prominent AI infrastructure company is seeking a Principle Engineer for Storage Services to provide technical leadership across storage solutions. In this senior role, you will guide the architecture and performance of Block, File, Parallel, and Object storage systems. The ideal candidate has significant experience in cloud infrastructure and distributed systems, with the ability to mentor teams and ensure seamless integration within the organization. Join a flexible workplace focused on innovation and impact.

Qualifications

• Proven experience in a Principal Engineer, Staff Engineer, or similar senior technical role.
• Expertise in modern storage architectures including Block, File, Parallel, and Object storage.
• Experience mentoring engineers and raising technical standards across teams.

Responsibilities

• Provide technical leadership across the Storage Services group.
• Lead design of scalable and high-performance storage solutions.
• Influence the roadmap and identify technical risks.

Skills

Technical leadership

Storage architecture

System thinking

Communication skills

Mentorship

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field

Job description

About Nscale

Nscale is the GPU cloud engineered for AI. We provide cost‑effective, high‑performance infrastructure for AI start‑ups and large enterprise customers. Nscale enables AI‑focused companies to achieve superior results by reducing the complexity of AI development. Our GPU cloud bolsters technical capabilities and directly supports strategic business outcomes, including cost management, rapid innovation, and environmental responsibility. We thrive on a culture of relentless innovation, ownership, and accountability, where every team member takes pride in their work and drives it with excellence and urgency. As an Nscaler, you’ll build trust through openness and transparency, where everyone is inspired to do their best work. If you join our team, you’ll be contributing to building the technology that powers the future.

About The Role

We’re hiring a Principle Engineer, Storage Services to provide senior technical leadership across our storage services group and shape the architecture, engineering direction, and technical quality of services spanning Block, File, Parallel, and Object storage. This is a senior individual contributor role within the Engineering organization, reporting to the VP Storage Engineer and working closely with the Director of Storage Services. You will partner across platform, infrastructure, and product teams to ensure storage services integrate effectively into the broader Nscale platform, while helping translate strategy into clear technical direction. In this role, you’ll define how critical storage services are designed, built, and evolved as part of Nscale’s wider platform. Your impact will be felt through stronger engineering standards, better technical decision‑making, and the delivery of scalable, resilient, and high‑performing storage capabilities that support the future of AI infrastructure at Nscale.

What you'll be doing

Technical Leadership & Architecture

• Provide technical leadership across the Storage Services group for Block, File, Parallel, and Object storage services.
• Lead the design of scalable, resilient, and high‑performance storage solutions aligned with Nscale’s wider platform architecture.
• Guide key engineering decisions, review designs, and uphold high standards of technical quality across the storage estate.
• Drive architectural consistency, sound engineering practices, and strong technical governance across storage services.

Strategy, Planning & Roadmap Influence

• Work closely with engineering leadership to translate storage strategy into clear technical plans, priorities, and implementation approaches.
• Influence the roadmap by clarifying technical trade‑offs, platform dependencies, and long‑term architectural considerations.
• Identify technical risks, scalability constraints, and operational weaknesses before they become larger issues.

Cross‑Functional Engineering Partnership

• Partner with engineers across platform, infrastructure, and product teams to ensure storage services integrate effectively into the broader Nscale platform.
• Support teams with hands‑on guidance to solve complex engineering challenges.
• Contribute deep technical expertise where platform‑level coordination and alignment are required.

Technical Excellence & Continuous Improvement

• Lead technical investigations, proof of concepts, and design work for new storage capabilities, service improvements, and platform enhancements.
• Support the team in improving service reliability, observability, performance, supportability, and operational maturity.
• Contribute to major incident resolution, root cause analysis, and continuous improvement where deep storage expertise is required.
• Stay current with developments in storage technologies and distributed systems to inform decisions on tools, architectures, and service evolution.

Mentorship & Engineering Standards

• Mentor and support engineers within the Storage Services group, helping raise technical capability across the team.
• Act as a senior technical authority by reviewing implementation approaches and guiding teams through difficult technical problems.
• Help set engineering standards that strengthen the quality and long‑term maintainability of storage services.

KPIs

• Scalable, resilient storage architecture delivery
• Service reliability, observability, and performance improvements
• Reduction of technical risks and scalability constraints
• Technical standards uplift across the Storage Services group

About You

• Proven experience in a Principal Engineer, Staff Engineer, Lead Architect, or similar senior technical role within storage, cloud infrastructure, distributed systems, or platform engineering.
• Deep expertise across modern storage architectures, including Block, File, Parallel, and Object storage systems.
• Strong track record of leading technical direction in complex engineering environments without formal people management authority.
• Demonstrable experience designing and operating large‑scale, production‑grade storage or infrastructure services.
• Deep understanding of distributed systems principles, including performance, availability, consistency, fault tolerance, and scalability.
• Experience working on platform‑level services that support multiple products, teams, or customer use cases.
• Strong systems thinking with the ability to evaluate trade‑offs across architecture, operations, cost, performance, and customer requirements.
• Hands‑on engineering credibility with the ability to go deep into technical design, review implementation approaches, and guide teams through complex problems.
• Experience mentoring engineers and raising technical standards across a team or organisation.
• Strong communication skills with the ability to explain complex technical concepts clearly and influence stakeholders across engineering and leadership teams.
• Comfort operating across both strategic and detailed technical work, from long‑term architecture through to practical delivery guidance.
• Experience in AI, HPC, data‑intensive, or performance‑sensitive environments would be highly advantageous.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

What we can offer you

At Nscale, you'll find a collaborative, supportive, and innovative environment where your contributions spark real impact. We're building something extraordinary, and we want you at the core. Join one of the fastest‑growing AI infrastructure companies — your chance to directly shape how global AI capacity is planned and deployed. Expect a dynamic progression plan tailored to your ambitions. Grow by leading critical cross‑functional initiatives and shaping capital strategy — always with our full support. Human‑First Flexibility: We treat you as humans first. Our flexible workplace trusts Nscalers to deliver, giving you the autonomy to shape your day around life's moments.

Equal Opportunities Statement

We strongly encourage applications from people of colour, the LGBTQ+ community, people with disabilities, neurodivergent people, parents, carers, and people from lower socio‑economic backgrounds.

Highly competitive compensation package (base + bonus + equity), with performance reviews every 12 months. If there’s anything we can do to accommodate your specific situation, please let us know.

The responsibilities outlined in this job description are not exhaustive and are intended to provide a general overview of the position. The employee may be required to perform additional duties, tasks, and responsibilities as assigned by management, consistent with the skills and qualifications required for the role.

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