Senior Engineer System Software, SDN Operations

NVIDIA; California (MO); On-site; USD 184,000 - 288,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Job summary

NVIDIA is seeking a Senior System Software Engineer to design, build, and operate scalable SDN for AI Clouds with GPU-accelerated workloads. You will own multi-tenant SDN control and data planes, contribute to open-source projects, and ensure production reliability through observability and CI/CD across Linux, Kubernetes, and cloud infrastructure.

The role requires advanced skills in C/Go, Kubernetes, and modern networking, with a focus on performance, security, and scalable operations in a

Qualifications

• BS/MS in Computer Science or related field, or equivalent experience.
• 8+ years of proven software development for large-scale distributed environments.
• Expert-level knowledge of OVN, OVS, OpenFlow, and modern network protocols.
• Strong programming skills in C and Go; scripting in Bash and Python.
• Deep knowledge of Kubernetes and CNIs (OVN-Kubernetes).
• Experience with Infrastructure-as-Code and deployment tools (Ansible, Terraform, ArgoCD, Flux).
• Experience designing and operating complex, multi-stage CI/CD pipelines.
• Hands-on experience developing secure, high-performance services using gRPC and REST with TLS and strong authentication.

Responsibilities

• Design and develop multi-tenant cloud SDN control and data plane software (OVS, OVN, OpenFlow).
• Build IaaS virtual network orchestration and services for tenant workloads with SLAs.
• Drive upstream contributions to OVN-Kubernetes and open-source projects.
• Develop software for network observability including monitoring and telemetry.
• Operate OVS-OVN based SDN solutions in large-scale NVIDIA AI Cloud environments.
• Own end-to-end observability with monitoring, alerting, tracing, and dashboards.

Skills

C & Go programming

Kubernetes & CNIs

GitLab CI/CD

Infrastructure as Code

Networking protocols

Python & Bash scripting

Observability tools

Education

BS/MS in Computer Science

Tools

OVS

OVN

OpenFlow

gRPC

REST

Terraform

ArgoCD

Flux

Job description

We are looking for a Senior System Software Engineer, Software Defined Networking to design, build, and operate highly performant and scalable SDN solutions for NVIDIA's AI Clouds hosting GPU-accelerated workloads — including hyperscale multi-node training, inference, cloud gaming, and cloud functions. This role spans the full lifecycle of our SDN stack — from designing and developing new control and data plane software to ensuring operational excellence in production through reliability engineering, CI/CD, observability, and incident response. What You'll Be Doing

• Design and develop next-generation multi-tenant cloud SDN control and data plane software (OVS, OVN, OpenFlow)
• Build Infrastructure-as-a-Service virtual network orchestration and services using gRPC and REST to support tenant workload security and performance SLAs for BMaaS, VMaaS, and Kubernetes
• Drive upstream contributions to OVN-Kubernetes and related open-source projects
• Develop software for network observability — monitoring, telemetry, intelligent metering, and performance analysis
• Operate and support OVS-OVN based SDN solutions in large-scale NVIDIA AI Cloud environments
• Own end-to-end observability for the SDN stack — build and maintain monitoring, alerting, distributed tracing, and dashboarding to ensure real-time insight into network health, performance, and tenant SLAs
• Design, enhance, and maintain CI/CD pipelines (GitLab) across Linux host networking, OVS, OVN, and Kubernetes CNIs
• Implement GitOps approaches or related experience for secure, seamless integration with cloud infrastructure
• Drive reliability through incident management, resource monitoring, and performance tuning
• Collaborate with SRE, DevOps, and network engineering teams on production readiness and operational tooling

What We Need To See

• BS/MS in Computer Science or related technical field, or equivalent experience
• 8+ years of proven experience in software development for large-scale distributed environments
• Expert-level knowledge of OVN, OVS, OpenFlow, and modern network protocols
• Strong programming skills in C and Go; advanced scripting in Bash and Python
• Deep knowledge of Kubernetes, practical experience deploying and supporting CNIs (OVN-Kubernetes)
• Hands-on experience with Infrastructure-as-Code and deployment tools (Ansible, Terraform, ArgoCD, Flux)
• Experience designing and operating complex, multi-stage CI/CD pipelines
• Hands-on experience developing secure, high-performance services using gRPC and REST with TLS and strong authentication
• Strong knowledge of datacenter routing, switching, and Linux host/VM networking

Ways To Stand Out From The Crowd

• Contributions to open-source projects (especially OVS, OVN, OVN-Kubernetes, or other Kubernetes networking projects)
• Experience with hardware acceleration (GPU, DPU or equivalent experience) for networking
• Practical experience with major cloud providers (AWS, Azure, GCP) and hybrid/multi-cloud deployments
• SRE/DevOps top-level expertise — on-call, incident management, operations focused on service reliability targets, production ownership
• Experience with observability platforms and tools (Prometheus, Grafana, Jaeger, OpenTelemetry, ELK)

With a competitive salary package and benefits, NVIDIA is widely considered to be one of the technology world’s most desirable employers. We have some of the most forward-thinking and hardworking people in the world working for us. Are you a creative and autonomous Systems Software Engineer who loves challenges? Do you have a genuine passion for advancing the state of Networking, SDN, and Cloud Networking across a variety of industries? If so, we want to hear from you.
Your base salary will be determined based on your location, experience, and the pay of employees in similar positions. The base salary range is 184,000 USD - 287,500 USD.
You will also be eligible for equity and benefits.