Data Center Network Engineer

Baseten; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive compensation, including meaningful equity

100% coverage of medical, dental, and vision insurance

Flexible PTO policy

Paid parental leave

Fertility and family-building stipend

Company-facilitated 401(k)

Exposure to a variety of ML startups

Job summary

Baseten is hiring a Network Engineer (Data Centers) in San Francisco to design and own the high-performance network infrastructure for their GPU clusters. This senior role collaborates closely with hardware and platform teams, directly impacting model performance and inference.

Responsibilities include managing network architecture, defining topology, and leading network performance testing. Ideal candidates have substantial experience designing data center networks and familiarity with InfiniBand or high-performance Ethernet.

Benefits include competitive compensation, full medical coverage, flexible PTO, and paid parental leave.

Qualifications

• Experience designing and operating data center or HPC networks.
• Strong familiarity with InfiniBand, RDMA, or high-performance Ethernet.
• Strong hands-on skills in network configuration, debugging, and performance tuning.
• Experience owning complex systems end-to-end at a senior level.
• Experience leading technical projects or cross-functional efforts.
• Prior leadership or mentoring experience is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end network architecture for data center clusters.
• Define topology, redundancy, and performance characteristics.
• Select switches, optics, and cabling systems.
• Lead network bring-up, validation, and performance testing.
• Partner with hardware and platform teams on system-level performance.
• Define standards for deploying networks across sites.
• Mentor and support future team members.

Job description

ABOUT BASETEN

Baseten powers mission‑critical inference for the world's most dynamic AI companies, like Cursor, Notion, OpenEvidence, Abridge, Clay, Gamma and Writer. By uniting applied AI research, flexible infrastructure, and seamless developer tooling, we enable companies operating at the frontier of AI to bring cutting‑edge models into production. We're growing quickly and recently raised our $300M Series E, backed by investors including BOND, IVP, Spark Capital, Greylock, and Conviction. Join us and help build the platform engineers turn to to ship AI products.

As a Network Engineer (Data Centers) at Baseten, you’ll design and own the high‑performance network infrastructure that powers our GPU clusters—from cluster fabric design to cabling architecture and performance validation.

This is a senior, hands‑on role with scope to grow into technical leadership. You’ll operate at a staff level, owning key design decisions and execution while helping define how we build and scale data center networks.

Your work will directly impact model training and inference performance, and you’ll collaborate closely with hardware and platform teams to ensure high throughput, low latency, and reliable distributed systems.

EXAMPLE INITIATIVES

• Cluster fabric design — Define InfiniBand or Ethernet‑based architectures for GPU clusters.
• Network deployment — Design spine‑leaf topologies and rack‑level connectivity.
• Performance optimization — Tune network performance for distributed workloads.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Own end‑to‑end network architecture for data center clusters.
• Define topology, redundancy, and performance characteristics.
• Select switches, optics, and cabling systems.
• Lead network bring‑up, validation, and performance testing.
• Partner with hardware and platform teams on system‑level performance.
• Define standards for deploying networks across sites.
• Mentor and support future team members.

REQUIREMENTS

• Experience designing and operating data center or HPC networks.
• Strong familiarity with InfiniBand, RDMA, or high‑performance Ethernet.
• Strong hands‑on skills in network configuration, debugging, and performance tuning.
• Experience owning complex systems end‑to‑end at a senior level.
• Experience leading technical projects or cross‑functional efforts.
• Prior leadership or mentoring experience is a plus.

BENEFITS

• Competitive compensation, including meaningful equity.
• 100% coverage of medical, dental, and vision insurance for employee and dependents
• Flexible PTO policy including company wide Winter Break (our offices are closed from Christmas Eve to New Year's Day!)
• Paid parental leave
• Fertility and family‑building stipend through Carrot
• Company‑facilitated 401(k)
• Exposure to a variety of ML startups, offering unparalleled learning and networking opportunities.

At Baseten, we are committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace. We provide equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, genetic information, disability, or veteran status.

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and will consider qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with applicable law (by example, the requirements of the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, where applicable).