Principal Software Engineer - Fleet Management

Nscale; Bellevue (WA); On-site; USD 240,000 - 400,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, vision

Flexible paid time off

Parental leave

Retirement plan

Job summary

Nscale is building a GenAI cloud from sustainable data centers and advanced AI infrastructure. The Principal Software Engineer will lead the Fleet Manager platform, owning architecture, design, and delivery of Python-based automation systems that provision, test, and remediate GPU nodes and network switches at scale.

You will mentor senior engineers, set technical direction, ensure reliability and observability, and partner with Infrastructure, Platform, and SRE teams to deliver production-grade

Qualifications

• 12–15+ years of production systems experience with leadership in infra automation or workflow tooling.
• Strong Python fundamentals and experience leading multi-service distributed systems.
• Experience delivering large-scale automation and infrastructure projects from requirements to production.
• Familiarity with AI tooling as part of development workflows (e.g., Claude, Cursor).
• Proven ability to drive reliability, observability, and SRE practices.

Responsibilities

• Lead architecture and roadmap for Fleet Manager workflow automation systems.
• Own end-to-end device provisioning, testing, and remediation workflows at scale.
• Design and build workflow orchestration for GPU and network lifecycle management.
• Set engineering standards for reliability, monitoring, and operational excellence.
• Mentor senior engineers and drive technical direction across teams.
• Collaborate with Infrastructure, Platform, and SRE to translate needs into scalable automation.

Skills

Leadership

Python

Distributed systems

AI tooling

SRE practices

Mentorship

Tools

Temporal

Airflow

Prefect

Kubernetes

Terraform

Pulumi

MAAS

Ironic

IPMI

NetBox

OpenStack

Job description

About Nscale

Nscale is building a vertically integrated GenAI cloud from sustainable data centers to advanced AI infrastructure and enterprise applications. Our culture values open collaboration, ownership, and excellence.

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 12-15+ 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

Strong candidates will 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

The range below reflects the base salary for the position. Actual compensation may vary based on job‑related factors such as skill set, experience, education, and location. In addition to base salary, this role may be eligible for bonus, equity, and/or commission programs. Nscale may offer a competitive benefits package including medical, dental, vision, flexible paid time off, parental leave, and retirement plan participation.

Salary Range

$240,000—$400,000 USD

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