Software engineer, cloud infrastructure San Francisco

Open CEDA; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Watershed in San Francisco seeks an experienced infrastructure engineer to design, build, and operate reliable cloud infrastructure across compute, databases, networking, and deployment systems. You will collaborate with product engineers to deliver scalable, secure, cost-effective platforms and participate in on-call rotations.

Key areas include enhancing observability, upgrading networking, and hardening AI infrastructure as Watershed grows its AI product suite.

Qualifications

• 2–5 years of software and/or infrastructure engineering experience.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and operate reliable cloud infrastructure powering Watershed across compute, databases, networking, deployment systems, and observability.
• Contribute to technical planning, design reviews, and team processes to enable high-impact development.
• Collaborate with product engineers to provide high-leverage infrastructure primitives that improve speed and safety for customer outcomes.
• Strengthen cloud security with Security and Compliance teams, and drive cost efficiency with Finance.
• Participate in 24/7 on-call rotations and translate operational lessons into lasting improvements.

Skills

Kubernetes

Terraform

CI/CD

Networking

Relational databases

Observability

Reliability

Cloud security

Job description

About Watershed

Watershed is the enterprise sustainability platform. Companies like Airbnb, Carlyle Group, FedEx, Visa, and Dr. Martens use Watershed to manage climate and ESG data, produce audit-ready metrics for voluntary and regulatory reporting including CSRD, and drive real decarbonization. We are looking for team members who love product-building, want to work hard at a mission-oriented startup, and will collaborate with us in shaping the culture of a growing team.

We have offices in San Francisco, New York, Denver, London, Paris, Berlin, Sydney, Mexico City, and remote team members across the US and Europe. We hope that you'll be interested in joining us!

The role

Watershed’s Cloud Infrastructure team builds and operates the foundational systems that power our product and help every engineer ship safely and efficiently. We own core compute, databases, networking, deployments, and observability, with a focus on production reliability, predictable infrastructure costs, security, and a low-toil developer experience.

Our work spans both operational excellence and high-leverage platform improvements. Current areas of investment include: upgrading our networking architecture, improving the usability of test environments and deployment systems, evolving our observability toolkit, hardening Watershed’s AI infrastructure as our AI product suite grows, and supporting agentic engineering workflows.

You will

• Design, build, and operate reliable cloud infrastructure that powers all of Watershed (across compute, databases, networking, deployment systems, and observability)
• Contribute to technical planning, design reviews, team processes, and a culture of thoughtful, high-impact development
• Collaborate with product engineers (our internal customers) to understand their needs and provide high-leverage infrastructure primitives that help them move faster, safely
• Strengthen Watershed’s cloud security in partnership with our Security and Compliance functions, and drive infrastructure cost efficiency in collaboration with our Finance team
• Participate in the team’s 24/7 on-call rotation and help turn operational lessons into lasting improvements

You might be a good fit if

• You have 2–5 years of software and/or infrastructure engineering experience, or equivalent practical experience
• You have hands-on experience in some of these areas: Kubernetes, Terraform / infrastructure as code, CI/CD, networking, relational databases, observability, reliability, or cloud security. Experience with a major cloud provider is a must; experience with GCP is helpful, but not required
• You enjoy the challenge of building the appropriate level of tooling for the stage and arc of the company, in particular being on the front lines of supporting AI infrastructure and agentic products
• You enjoy building enabling systems that help other engineers deliver excellent customer outcomes

Must be willing to work from an office 4 days per week (except for remote roles)

Watershed has hub offices in San Francisco, New York, London, and Mexico City and satellite offices in Denver, Sydney, Paris, and Berlin. Where we have offices, employees are expected to be in office for 4 days per week. Certain jobs are open to being remote and will be specifically noted on the jobs page and in the job description if so.

What’s the interview process like?

It starts the same for every candidate: getting to know the team members through 1 to 2 conversations about Watershed, your experience, and your interests. Next steps can vary by role, but usual next steps are a skill or experience interview (e.g. a coding interview for an engineer, a portfolio review for a designer, deeper experience call for other roles) which leads to a virtual or in person interview panel. We prioritize transparency and lack of surprise throughout the process.

What if I need accommodations for my interview?

At Watershed, we are dedicated to ensuring an inclusive recruitment process. We provide reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities, long-term conditions, mental health needs, religious observances, neurodivergence, or pregnancy-related support requirements. If you need assistance during your process, please contact your recruiter.