DevOps Engineer

Harrison Clarke; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Confidential AI Startup in San Francisco is hiring a DevOps / Platform Engineer to build the cloud infrastructure that will power the next phase of our AI platform. You will work with backend engineers, AI researchers and product teams to design scalable, secure, and automated systems.

Joining early, you will define infrastructure standards, implement IaC, and improve deployment pipelines while focusing on developer experience and reliability in fast-moving startup environment.

Qualifications

• 4+ years building cloud infrastructure in production environments.
• Passion for automation and reducing operational overhead.
• Experience improving reliability and engineering velocity.
• Product mindset with an appreciation for developer experience.
• Ability to thrive in fast-moving startup environments.
• Excellent communication skills and a collaborative approach.

Responsibilities

• Build scalable cloud infrastructure on AWS or GCP.
• Improve deployment pipelines and developer experience.
• Own monitoring, alerting and incident response.
• Implement infrastructure security best practices.
• Create reusable tooling across engineering.

Skills

Cloud infrastructure

Automation

Reliability engineering

Startup environment

Communication

Tools

AWS

GCP

Job description

Compensation: Competitive Salary + Meaningful Equity

Company: Confidential AI Startup | Series A ($15M)

Build the Infrastructure Behind the Next Generation of AI. The AI application layer is evolving rapidly. Behind every breakthrough product is a platform capable of training, deploying and operating AI systems at scale. Our client is building exactly that.

They're an AI-native startup that has recently closed a $15M Series A, led by a Tier 1 Silicon Valley venture capital firm, alongside investment from some of the most respected founders and technology executives in the Valley.

With fresh funding, exceptional leadership and ambitious product goals, they're now looking for a DevOps / Platform Engineer to build the cloud infrastructure that will power the next phase of their growth.

The Opportunity

This isn't a traditional DevOps role.

You'll be joining early enough to define how infrastructure is built from the ground up while helping establish the engineering standards that will support the company's growth over the coming years.

You'll work closely with backend engineers, AI researchers and product teams to build scalable, secure and highly automated infrastructure capable of supporting AI workloads in production.

If you enjoy solving difficult infrastructure problems, automating everything possible and enabling engineering teams to move faster, you'll thrive here.

What You'll Do

Build Scalable Cloud Infrastructure

• Design and maintain cloud infrastructure on AWS or GCP
• Build highly available, production-grade environments
• Improve scalability, reliability and resilience across the platform
• Design infrastructure that grows with the business
• Build internal developer platforms that accelerate engineering productivity
• Improve deployment pipelines and developer experience
• Standardise infrastructure through Infrastructure-as-Code
• Create reusable tooling across engineering

Automation

• Automate provisioning, deployments and operational workflows
• Eliminate manual operational tasks wherever possible
• Build systems that engineers love using

Reliability & Observability

• Own monitoring, alerting and incident response
• Improve platform reliability and uptime
• Build comprehensive logging and observability
• Lead operational excellence initiatives

Security

• Implement infrastructure security best practices
• Manage secrets and access controls
• Improve compliance and cloud security posture
• Ensure production environments remain secure as the company scales

Experience supporting AI infrastructure, GPU workloads, ML platforms or large-scale distributed systems would be a significant advantage.

What We're Looking For

You'll likely have:

• 4+ years building cloud infrastructure in production environments
• A passion for automation and reducing operational overhead
• Experience improving reliability and engineering velocity
• A product mindset with an appreciation for developer experience
• The ability to thrive in fast-moving startup environments
• Excellent communication skills and a collaborative approach

Why This Opportunity?

Early-stage engineering opportunities like this are rare.

You'll be joining shortly after a successful Series A with the resources to execute, while still having genuine influence over technical direction and engineering culture.

You'll work alongside an experienced founding team backed by one of Silicon Valley's leading venture firms and supported by angel investors who have helped build some of the world's most successful technology companies. Your work won't be hidden behind layers of process.

You'll help shape the platform that enables the entire business to move faster.