Principal Software Engineer - Fleet Management

Nscale; Greater London; Remote; GBP 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary package

Equity options

Flexible working hours

Remote-first environment

Professional development opportunities

Job summary

A leading GPU cloud provider in the UK is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to lead the development of their Fleet Manager platform. The successful candidate will own the architecture of Python-based automation systems. Responsibilities include mentoring a team of engineers and establishing best practices for infrastructure reliability and operational excellence. Join a remote-first culture that supports flexibility and inclusion, while contributing to cutting-edge AI technology.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in software engineering with a focus on production systems.
• Proven leadership in infrastructure automation or workflow tooling.
• Strong fundamentals in Python and experience with distributed systems.

Responsibilities

• Lead technical architecture and roadmap for workflow automation systems.
• Own the delivery of device provisioning and remediation workflows.
• Establish engineering standards for reliability and operational excellence.

Skills

Software engineering experience

Technical leadership

Python engineering fundamentals

Distributed systems

Infrastructure reliability

Mentorship skills

Communication skills

Tools

Python

Kubernetes

Terraform

OpenStack

Airflow

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.

At Nscale, our Software engineers form the backbone of our product offering. We build state‑of‑the‑art AI products allowing our clients to move quickly in an increasingly competitive digital landscape. 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 Principal Software Engineer to lead the technical development of our Fleet Manager platform – the workflow automation system that provisions, tests, and remediates GPU nodes and network switches at scale.

As technical lead, you’ll own the architecture and delivery of foundational Python‑based automation systems that manage the entire lifecycle of our compute infrastructure: device enrolment, burn‑in testing, network configuration, GPU health monitoring, and self‑healing capabilities. You’ll mentor a team of senior engineers, set technical direction, and drive engineering excellence while remaining hands‑on with critical systems.

What you’ll do

• Lead technical architecture and roadmap for Fleet Manager's workflow automation systems
• Own end‑to‑end delivery of device provisioning, validation, testing, and remediation workflows at scale
• Design and build workflow orchestration systems for GPU node and network switch lifecycle management
• Establish engineering standards for reliability, observability, and operational excellence across all Fleet Manager services
• Mentor and raise the bar for a team of senior engineers through design reviews, technical leadership, and hands‑on collaboration
• Drive architecture decisions balancing automation complexity, reliability, and maintainability
• Integrate with infrastructure tooling: DCIMs, NetBox, OpenStack, bare metal APIs (MAAS, Ironic, IPMI)
• Partner with Infrastructure, Platform, and SRE teams to translate operational needs into robust, scalable automation
• Build production‑grade Python systems for hardware lifecycle automation, leveraging AI tools to accelerate delivery

About You

• You have 10+ years software engineering experience building and operating production systems, with proven technical leadership in infrastructure automation or workflow tooling
• Strong Python engineering fundamentals with experience leading complex, multi‑service distributed systems
• You are driven by building distributed systems at scale, infrastructure reliability, scalability, security, and continuous improvement
• Technical expertise: quickly understanding systems design tradeoffs, keeping track of rapidly evolving software systems
• Track record of owning technical roadmaps and delivering large‑scale automation systems from ambiguous requirements to production
• You use AI tools like Claude or Cursor as a core part of your development workflow – as a fundamental multiplier of what you can build
• Deep understanding of operational excellence: SLOs, monitoring, alerting, incident response, and production reliability
• Strong mentorship skills with ability to develop high‑performing engineering teams
• Excellent communication skills to build consensus with stakeholders, both internally and externally

Nice to have

• Experience with workflow orchestration tools like Temporal, Airflow, Prefect, or similar
• Hands‑on experience with infrastructure tooling: DCIMs, NetBox, OpenStack, or ERP systems
• Bare metal provisioning and automation: MAAS, Ironic, IPMI, PXE boot, or network automation
• Experience building hardware lifecycle automation: provisioning, validation, testing, or remediation workflows
• GPU infrastructure experience: health monitoring, burn‑in testing, or cluster management
• HPC and networking: datacenter topology, high‑performance interconnects (InfiniBand, RoCE)
• Deep knowledge of Kubernetes, Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, Pulumi), AWS, and GCP
• Track record of 1+ years leading large‑scale, complex projects or technical teams
• Open‑source contributions in infrastructure automation or cloud‑native tooling

What We Can Offer You

• Highly competitive package (base + equity) with reviews every 12 months. 🚀
• Join the fastest‑growing tech startup, your chance to push boundaries, collaborate with brilliant minds, and make your mark on cutting‑edge AI. ✨
• Expect a dynamic progression plan tailored to your ambitions. Grow by trying new things, leading, challenging the status quo, and owning your impact, 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.

Join our thriving remote‑first team. Geography is no barrier to impact or connection. We build seamless virtual collaboration, empowering you, wherever you work.

Equal Opportunities Statement

At NScale, we are committed to fostering an inclusive, diverse, and equitable workplace. We believe that a variety of perspectives enriches our work environment, and we encourage applications from candidates of all backgrounds, experiences, and abilities. 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.

If there’s anything we can do to accommodate your specific situation, please let us know.

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