Principal Infrastructure Architect

DigitalOcean; Seattle (WA); Hybrid; USD 184,000 - 231,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive benefits

Career development support

Flexible time off policy

Employee Stock Purchase Program

Job summary

DigitalOcean is looking for a Principal Infrastructure Architect to drive innovation in server and storage platform designs. You will collaborate with technical teams, owning the roadmap for CPU, GPU, and Infrastructure hardware.

The ideal candidate has over 10 years of experience and a proven track record of architectural excellence. You will also lead proof-of-concept projects, mentor engineers, and represent DigitalOcean in the community.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in server architecture or related field.
• Deep expertise in server and storage hardware platforms.
• Working experience driving AI/ML hardware roadmaps.

Responsibilities

• Defining and owning DigitalOcean's hardware architectures.
• Serving as the primary technical stakeholder for infrastructure technologies.
• Leading proof-of-concept initiatives for emerging infrastructure technologies.

Skills

Server architecture

Storage architecture

Infrastructure engineering

AI/ML hardware roadmaps

Cross-functional collaboration

Leadership skills

Job description

Overview

Dive in and do the best work of your career at DigitalOcean. Journey alongside a strong community of top talent who are relentless in their drive to build the simplest scalable cloud. If you have a growth mindset, naturally like to think big and bold, and are energized by the fast-paced environment of a true industry disruptor, you’ll find your place here. We value winning together—while learning, having fun, and making a profound difference for the dreamers and builders in the world. Drive the future of DigitalOcean - design our Compute, GPU, Storage, and Infrastructure Platforms. This role is a Principal Infrastructure Architect on our Hardware Engineering team; this individual owns the forward-looking roadmap for our CPU, GPU, Storage, and Infrastructure hardware platforms, as we anticipate industry evolution from Air to Liquid to 800VDC rack scale systems. Collaborating with peers on the Infrastructure and Networking teams who own the roadmaps for datacenters and networking at DO. JR: 2026-7831

What You’ll Be Doing

• Defining and owning DigitalOcean's hardware architectures for next-generation compute environments across our CPU, GPU, Storage, and Infrastructure Server SKU products, navigating shifts in technology, networking topologies, and AI/ML requirements.
• Serving as DigitalOcean's primary technical stakeholder for infrastructure technologies partnering with SMEs in the Product and Hardware Engineering organization.
• Providing leadership and guidance as a primary stakeholder in the hardware selection and qualification process.
• Evangelizing emerging technical concepts to senior leadership to inform product and business strategies.
• Architecting end-to-end server designs with vendors and partner teams to support a wide variety of CPU, GPU, and other emerging workloads.
• Architecting end-to-end storage topologies with vendor teams to support diverse workloads across performance, capacity, and archival tiers, moving from direct-attached to disaggregated and software-defined storage.
• Leading proof-of-concept (PoC) initiatives for emerging infrastructure technologies and transitioning successful pilots into global deployment standards.
• Mentor engineers at all levels and contribute to a culture of technical excellence, inclusivity, and impact.
• Represent DigitalOcean in the broader community attending conferences, contributing to papers and presentations.

What We’ll Expect From You

• 10+ years of experience in server architecture, storage architecture, infrastructure engineering, or a related field, with a track record of owning and deploying designs at scale.
• Deep expertise in server and storage hardware platforms with strong working knowledge of compute technologies across the spectrum—from commodity CPU servers to rack scale GPU and xPU platforms.
• Working experience of driving AI/ML hardware roadmaps and the ability to translate evolving silicon, accelerator, memory, and storage trends into future-proofed platform designs.
• Knowledge of emerging and non-traditional hardware approaches such as CXL memory pooling, DPUs/SmartNICs, disaggregated storage, and computational storage.
• Demonstrated ability to lead proof-of-concept initiatives and scale successful pilots into global deployment standards.
• Strong cross-functional collaboration skills, partnering with technical and business teams along with external vendors and partners.
• Excellent communication and leadership skills, including mentoring engineers and representing the company externally at conferences and through technical papers.

Compensation Range

• $184,000 - $231,000
• This is a hybrid role

Why You’ll Like Working for DigitalOcean

• We innovate with purpose. You’ll be a part of a cutting-edge technology company with an upward trajectory, who are proud to simplify cloud and AI so builders can spend more time creating software that changes the world. As a member of the team, you will be a Shark who thinks big, bold, and scrappy, like an owner with a bias for action and a powerful sense of responsibility for customers, products, employees, and decisions.
• We prioritize career development. At DO, you’ll do the best work of your career. You will work with some of the smartest and most interesting people in the industry. We are a high-performance organization that will always challenge you to think big. Our organizational development team will provide you with resources to ensure you keep growing. We provide employees with reimbursement for relevant conferences, training, and education. All employees have access to LinkedIn Learning's 10,000+ courses to support their continued growth and development.
• We care about your well-being. Regardless of your location, we will provide you with a competitive array of benefits to support you from our Employee Assistance Program to Local Employee Meetups to flexible time off policy, to name a few. While the philosophy around our benefits is the same worldwide, specific benefits may vary based on local regulations and preferences.
• We reward our employees. The salary range for this position is based on market data, relevant years of experience, and skills. You may qualify for a bonus in addition to base salary; bonus amounts are determined based on company and individual performance. We also provide equity compensation to eligible employees, including equity grants upon hire and the option to participate in our Employee Stock Purchase Program.
• DigitalOcean is an equal-opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, ancestry, national origin, caste, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or expression, age, disability, medical condition, pregnancy, genetic makeup, marital status, or military service.

Application Limit

You may apply to a maximum of 3 positions within any 180-day period. This policy promotes better role-candidate matching and encourages thoughtful applications where your qualifications align most strongly.