Senior Engineer, Compute Fabric & Network Architecture, Project Sunrise

Blue Origin LLC; Littleton (CO); On-site; USD 112,000 - 187,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical insurance

Stock options

401(k) match

Parental leave

Paid time off

Job summary

Blue Origin is seeking a hardware-leaning systems engineer to own the foundational decisions for the high-speed interconnect fabric in a large-scale orbital data center. You will design, implement, and optimize the fabric from physical layer to software stack, ensuring resilience under radiation and supporting multi-tenant workloads.

You will lead topology decisions, bring-up and operation of fabric software, and collaborate with software teams to optimize model-parallel AI performance on a

Qualifications

• Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related field.
• 8+ years of experience in HPC networking, datacenter fabric design, or GPU cluster engineering.
• Expertise with high-speed, direct GPU-to-GPU interconnects and high-radix fabric switches.
• Hands-on experience with large-scale network topology and fabric management tools.
• Proficiency with collective communication libraries.
• U.S. citizenship, permanent residency, or protected status as required.

Responsibilities

• Architect the hierarchical GPU interconnect topology for a large-scale accelerator cluster.
• Own the configuration, bring-up, and operation of fabric management software.
• Lead hardware qualification of fabric switches for space environment and mitigate radiation effects.
• Tune communications performance across the fabric and define bandwidth/latency budgets.
• Collaborate with software teams to co-design fabric topology with model parallelism strategies.
• Interface with platform software teams to manage fabric software bring-up and integration.

Skills

HPC networking

Datacenter fabric design

GPU cluster engineering

Network topology at scale

Collective communication libraries

Fabric management tools

Interconnect software

Performance tuning

Education

Bachelor of Science in a related field

Master’s or Ph.D. in a relevant discipline

Tools

NCCL

RCCL

InfiniBand fabrics

Job description

Application close date: Applications will be accepted on an ongoing basis until the requisition is closed. At Blue Origin, we envision millions of people living and working in space for the benefit of Earth. We’re working to develop reusable, safe, and low-cost space vehicles and systems within a culture of safety, collaboration, and inclusion. Join our team of problem solvers as we add new chapters to the history of spaceflight! This role is part of Advanced Concepts and Enterprise Engineering (ACE), supporting Blue Origin’s mission of millions of people living and working in space for the benefit of Earth. The team fosters innovation and drives engineering workflows of the future, shared solutions and standards, simplicity and lower costs, and manufacturable design.

Job Summary

Our team is developing next-generation spacecraft that push the boundaries of performance and capability in orbit. We are building a large-scale orbital data center, and we are looking for a hardware-leaning systems engineer to be the architect and builder of its nervous system. This is not an operator role; you will be the owner responsible for making the foundational hardware decisions for our high-speed interconnect fabric and owning its performance from the physical layer all the way up to the software stack. You will solve novel, first-principles challenges, such as ensuring fabric resiliency in a radiation environment, and your decisions will be critical to the success of the entire program.

Responsibilities

• Architect the hierarchical GPU interconnect topology for a large-scale accelerator cluster, defining pod architecture, fabric switch placement, and inter-pod fabric selection.
• Following hardware selection, own the configuration, bring-up, and operation of fabric management software, defining topology files and partitioning policies for multi-tenant workloads.
• Lead the hardware qualification of fabric switches and other network components for the space environment, developing novel strategies to mitigate radiation effects on switch state and routing tables.
• Take ownership of the collective communications performance across the fabric, tuning libraries (e.g., NCCL, RCCL) and defining the bandwidth/latency budgets required for high-performance model-parallel inference.
• Collaborate deeply with software teams to co-design the fabric topology with model parallelism strategies, ensuring optimal performance for large-scale AI models.
• Interface with platform software teams to manage the fabric software bring-up and integration process.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related field.
• 8+ years of experience in HPC networking, datacenter fabric design, or GPU cluster engineering.
• Demonstrated expertise in designing and deploying large-scale accelerator clusters using high-speed, direct GPU-to-GPU interconnects and high-radix fabric switches.
• Deep, hands-on experience with network topology at scale (e.g., large supercomputer clusters or hyperscale infrastructure) and associated fabric management tools.
• Proficiency with collective communication libraries.
• Must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. permanent resident (current Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum.

Preferred Qualifications

• Master’s or Ph.D. in a relevant discipline.
• 10-15+ years of experience in a senior networking or systems design role.
• Extensive experience with InfiniBand fabrics.
• Intellectual curiosity and a first-principles approach to problem-solving, particularly for novel challenges like the effect of radiation on network switch silicon (prior space experience is not required).
• Experience at a major cloud provider (e.g., Meta, Google, Microsoft), HPC vendor, or National Laboratory (e.g., ORNL, ANL, LLNL) focused on large-scale GPU networking.
• Passion for and understanding of AI and Machine Learning applications in engineering, with a demonstrated ability to learn and integrate new technologies.

Base Pay Range

Base Pay Range for: CO applicants is $133,500.00 - $186,898.95 WA applicants is $145,188.00 - $203,263.20 Other site ranges may differ

Culture Statement

Don’t meet all desired requirements? Studies have shown that some people are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single desired qualification. At Blue Origin, we are dedicated to building an authentic workplace, so if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every desired qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.

Export Control Regulations

Applicants for employment at Blue Origin must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. permanent resident (i.e. current Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum.

Background Check Required

• Blue’s Standard Background Check Required for Certain Job Profiles: Defense Biometric Identification System (DBIDS) background check if at any time the role requires one to be on a military installation
• Required for Certain Job Profiles: Drivers who operate Commercial Motor Vehicles with a Gross Vehicle Weight (GVW), Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR) or combination of power unit and trailer that meets or exceeds 10,001 lbs. and/or transports placardable amounts of hazardous materials by ground in any vehicle on a public road while in commerce, may be subject to additional Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations including: Driver Qualification Files, Medical Certification (obtained before onboarding), Road Test, Hours of Service, Drug and Alcohol Testing, vehicle inspection requirements, CDL requirements (if applicable) and hazardous materials transportation/shipping training.
• Required for certain Job Profiles: Ability to obtain and maintain Merchant Mariner Credential, which includes pre-employment and random drug testing as well as DOT physical

Benefits

• Medical, dental, vision, basic and supplemental life insurance, paid parental leave, short and long-term disability, 401(k) with a company match of up to 5%, and an Education Support Program.
• Stock Options for all regular employees (working at least 20 hours/week)
• Paid Time Off: Up to four (4) weeks per year based on weekly scheduled hours, and up to 14 company-paid holidays.
• Dependent on role type and job level, employees may be eligible for benefits and bonuses based on the company's intent to reward individual contributions and enable them to share in the company's results, or other factors at the company's sole discretion. Bonus amounts and eligibility are not guaranteed and subject to change and cancellation.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Blue Origin is proud to be an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer and is committed to attracting, retaining, and developing a highly qualified and dedicated work force. Blue Origin hires and promotes people on the basis of their qualifications, performance, and abilities. We support the establishment and maintenance of a workplace that fosters trust, equality, and teamwork. We provide all qualified applicants for employment and employees with equal opportunities for hire, promotion, and other terms and conditions of employment, regardless of their race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin/ethnicity, age, physical or mental disability, genetic factors, military/veteran status, or any other status or characteristic protected by federal, state, and/or local law. Blue Origin will consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with applicable federal, state, and local laws, including the Washington Fair Chance Act, the California Fair Chance Act, the Los Angeles Fair Chance in Hiring Ordinance, and other applicable laws. For more information on “Know Your Rights,” please see here.

We’re committed to building the road to space so our children can build the future. We are a mission-driven company focused on ideas and innovation, and encourage fresh perspectives from bold voices. At Blue, our team is building the future as their unique selves. Thank you for your interest in working at Blue Origin! Blue Origin was founded with a vision to enable a future where millions of people are living and working in space to benefit Earth. In order to preserve Earth, Blue Origin believes in the need to enable humanity to expand, explore, find new energy and material resources, and move industries that stress Earth into space. Blue Origin believes it has an important role in building a road to space and lowering the cost of getting there. At Blue Origin, we’re working on this today by developing fully reusable launch vehicles and systems that are safe, reliable and affordable. Every launch vehicle is designed for human spaceflight from the beginning and able to ferry payloads to space.