Senior Engineer 2: AI Inference Engine Systems

DigitalOcean; Seattle (WA); On-site; USD 167,200 - 209,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Career development resources

Competitive benefits package

Equity compensation options

Job summary

A pioneering cloud service provider in Seattle seeks a Senior Engineer 2 for its AI Inference Data Plane team. This role requires designing and delivering high-scale, resilient data services. Responsibilities include technical leadership, system design, performance optimization, mentorship, and operational excellence. Candidates should have expertise in distributed systems, AI/ML, and strong software engineering skills, particularly in GoLang or Python. Competitive salary range from $167,200 to $209,000 with remote work options.

Qualifications

• Strong experience with microservices and messaging systems.
• Hands-on experience hosting large language or multimodal models.
• Familiarity with distributed inference serving frameworks.

Responsibilities

• Drive the end-to-end design, development, and delivery.
• Architect and refine system design proposals.
• Implement and optimize distributed inference hosting.
• Work cross-functionally with different teams.
• Coach and mentor junior engineers.
• Maintain and operate critical, high-scale services.

Skills

Distributed Systems Expertise

AI/ML Domain Knowledge

Inference Frameworks

Hardware & Interconnects

Architecture Proficiency

Software Engineering

Cloud Operations

Open Source Mindset

Job description

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.

DigitalOcean is expanding its AI Infrastructure layer to support the next generation of AI-driven applications. We are seeking a Senior Engineer 2 to join our AI Inference Data Plane team. In this role, you will be a key technical leader responsible for designing, developing, and delivering high-scale, resilient data plane services that power our "Inference as a Service" offering. You will work at the intersection of distributed systems and specialized AI hardware to ensure our customers can deploy and scale their models with industry-leading performance and reliability. This is a hands‑on role, requiring you to be able to develop high quality software while availing of all the productivity boosts granted by the latest AI coding agents.

What You’ll Do

• Technical Leadership: Act as a technical leader on the team, driving the end‑to‑end design, development, and delivery of critical data plane components hosting large generative AI models.
• System Design: Architect and refine system design proposals for our high‑scale, multi‑tenant AI inference cloud ecosystem, ensuring they meet rigorous availability and resiliency standards.
• Performance Optimization: Implement and optimise distributed inference hosting using techniques like tensor/data parallelism, KV cache optimisations, and smart routing.
• Collaboration: Work cross‑functionally with Product Managers, customer‑facing teams, and other engineering teams to align technical roadmaps with customer needs.
• Mentorship: Coach and mentor junior engineers, fostering a culture of technical excellence and continuous improvement.
• Operational Excellence: Maintain and operate critical, high‑scale services, utilising observability tools and defining SLOs to ensure superior platform health.

What You’ll Bring To DigitalOcean

• Distributed Systems Expertise: Strong experience with microservices, messaging systems, databases, and infrastructure as code.
• AI/ML Domain Knowledge: Hands‑on experience hosting large language or multimodal models using inference engines like vLLM, SGLang, or Modular.
• Inference Frameworks: Familiarity with distributed inference serving frameworks such as llm‑d, NVIDIA Dynamo, or Ray Serve.
• Hardware & Interconnects: Understanding of GPU‑level optimisation and experience with interconnect technologies like NVlink, XGMI, or RoCE.
• Architecture Proficiency: Knowledge of common LLM architectures and optimisation techniques (e.g., continuous batching, quantisation).
• Software Engineering: Expert‑level proficiency in GoLang or Python and familiarity with gRPC.
• Cloud Operations: Proven experience shipping customer‑facing software products and running critical services in a high‑scale environment similar to DigitalOcean.
• Open Source Mindset: Experience integrating and building with open‑source software.

Compensation Range

• $167,200.00 - $209,000
• This is a remote 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 prioritise 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 organisational 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, colour, ancestry, national origin, caste, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or expression, age, disability, medical condition, pregnancy, genetic makeup, marital status, or military service.