Senior Systems Engineer - West Coast

VAST Data, Inc.; United States; On-site; USD 150,000 - 220,000; Full time

Job summary

VAST Data, Inc. is seeking a Senior Systems Engineer for the West Coast to join our growing team.

You will partner with account executives to translate customer needs into scalable architectures across on-prem, hybrid cloud, and edge deployments. You will design and present architectures around the AI Operating System, provide technical guidance, and help customers modernize data platforms and pipelines for enterprise-scale workloads.

Qualifications

• Experience with Linux, networking, and distributed systems.
• Hands-on in Docker, Kubernetes, and cloud-native deployments.
• Familiarity with S3-compatible storage and hybrid cloud.
• Knowledge of data lakes, lakehouses, and large analytics.
• Data ingestion, ETL/ELT, streaming, and event-driven architectures.
• Proficiency in SQL and data processing tools (Spark, Kafka, Trino).
• Understanding AI/ML infra for training, inference, and vector search.
• Experience designing for petabyte-scale enterprise workloads.
• Strong technical communication with engineers and executives.

Responsibilities

• Partner with Account Executives to drive technical strategy through the sales cycle, from discovery through deployment planning.
• Design architectures across on-premises, hybrid cloud, and edge environments.
• Serve as a trusted technical advisor to customers building AI factories and modern data platforms.
• Architect and position VAST's Data Platform and DataEngine solutions for scalable data architectures.
• Advise customers on distributed storage, Kubernetes, data lakes, lakehouses, and event-driven architectures.
• Help customers modernize infrastructure, adopt cloud-native patterns, and evaluate hybrid cloud strategies.
• Collaborate with Product Management and Engineering to translate customer insights into product capabilities.
• Stay current with emerging technologies across AI, cloud infrastructure, and distributed systems.

Skills

Linux

Networking

Distributed systems

Docker

Kubernetes

Cloud-native architectures

S3-compatible storage

Data lakes

Lakehouse

ETL/ELT pipelines

Streaming technologies

Event-driven architectures

SQL

Apache Spark

Kafka

Trino

AI/ML infrastructure

Model training / inference

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

Spark

Kafka

Trino

Job description

Senior Systems Engineer - West Coast

• Systems Engineering
• West Coast
• Full-time

Description

VAST Data is looking to hire a Senior Systems Engineer to join our growing team!

VAST Data is defining an entirely new category in enterprise infrastructure by building the world's first Operating System for AI.

For decades, organizations have relied on fragmented infrastructure stacks - separate systems for storage, databases, messaging, virtualization, and AI pipelines. VAST has fundamentally reimagined this model by unifying these capabilities into a single intelligent software platform purpose-built for the AI era.

As one of the fastest-growing enterprise software companies in the world, VAST partners with the industry's leading organizations to power next-generation AI factories, autonomous agents, large-scale model training, and modern data platforms.

Joining VAST means becoming part of a team that isn't just building another infrastructure product-we're creating a new category and defining the foundation upon which the future of AI will run.

If you're excited by transformational technology, solving complex technical challenges, and helping customers build the future, we want to hear from you.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Partner with Account Executives to drive technical strategy throughout the sales cycle, from discovery and solution architecture through demonstrations, proof-of-concepts, and deployment planning.
• Design and present architectures leveraging the VAST AI Operating System across on-premises, hybrid cloud, and edge environments.
• Serve as a trusted technical advisor to customers building AI factories, modern data platforms, analytics environments, and cloud-native applications at enterprise scale.
• Architect and position VAST's Data Platform and DataEngine solutions, helping customers modernize data architectures, streamline data pipelines, and support real-time processing and AI workloads.
• Advise customers on distributed storage, Kubernetes, data lakes, lakehouses, event-driven architectures, and modern data processing technologies.
• Help customers modernize traditional infrastructure, adopt cloud-native architectures, and evaluate hybrid cloud, workload mobility, and data repatriation strategies.
• Engage with infrastructure, data engineering, and AI/ML teams to translate complex technical requirements into scalable, high-performance solutions.
• Collaborate with Product Management and Engineering to bring customer insights into product development and help shape VAST's evolving platform capabilities.
• Stay current with emerging technologies across AI, cloud infrastructure, distributed systems, data engineering, and modern application architectures.

Requirements

• Strong expertise in Linux operating systems, networking fundamentals, and distributed systems.
• Hands-on experience with Docker, Kubernetes, containers, and cloud-native architectures in production environments.
• Understanding of enterprise storage technologies, S3-compatible object storage, and hybrid cloud infrastructure.
• Knowledge of modern data platform architectures, including data lakes, lakehouses, distributed databases, and large-scale analytics environments.
• Familiarity with data engineering concepts, including data ingestion, ETL/ELT pipelines, streaming technologies, and event-driven architectures.
• Working knowledge of SQL and data processing technologies such as Apache Spark, Kafka, Trino, or similar platforms is highly desirable.
• Understanding of AI/ML infrastructure and data pipelines supporting model training, inference, RAG, and vector search.
• Experience architecting solutions for large-scale enterprise environments, ideally supporting petabyte-scale or mission-critical workloads.
• Strong technical communication and consultative selling skills, with the ability to engage engineers, architects, and executive stakeholders.
• Intellectual curiosity, adaptability, and a passion for emerging technologies, with the ability to learn and position new platform capabilities as VAST continues to innovate.