Software Engineer, Cloud Platform

BranchFactor; San Francisco, New York, Seattle (CA, NY, WA); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Medical coverage

Flexible PTO

Parental leave

401(k)

Learning exposure

Job summary

Baseten powers mission-critical inference for AI companies and is growing rapidly in San Francisco. The Cloud Platform Engineering team owns the Kubernetes fleet powering production workloads, building APIs, controllers, and automation to reduce configuration drift and scale GPU capacity for AI inference.

You'll partner across teams to design, implement GitOps workflows with Terraform and GitOps tooling, and ship reliable platform services from design through production, with a strong emphasis

Qualifications

• Production infrastructure software or distributed systems experience.
• Strong Go or similar systems language coding capabilities.
• Kubernetes infrastructure with controllers/operators experience.
• IaC and GitOps with Terraform and Flux or Argo CD.
• Linux, networking, and debugging fundamentals for reliability.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and operate services, APIs, and Kubernetes controllers that automate cluster lifecycle management.
• Develop reusable Terraform modules and GitOps configuration that work across cloud and GPU infrastructure providers.
• Make infrastructure changes safe through validation, staged rollouts, clear ownership boundaries, and tested recovery paths.
• Build observability into automation so engineers can understand progress, diagnose failures, and retry operations safely.
• Partner with infrastructure and workload teams to define platform interfaces, resolve operational pain points, and take projects from design through adoption.

Skills

Go

Kubernetes

Infrastructure as Code

Linux

Networking

Debugging

Tools

Terraform

Flux

Argo CD

Job description

ABOUT BASETEN

Baseten powers mission-critical inference for the world's most dynamic AI companies, like Cursor, Notion, OpenEvidence, Abridge, Clay, Gamma, and Writer. By uniting applied AI research, flexible infrastructure, and seamless developer tooling, we enable companies operating at the frontier of AI to bring cutting-edge models into production. We're growing quickly and recently raised our $1.5B Series F, led by Altimeter Capital, Conviction Partners, and Spark Capital. Join us and help build the platform engineers turn to ship AI products.

THE ROLE

Join Cloud Platform Engineering to own the Kubernetes fleet that runs our production AI workloads. You’ll turn manual cluster operations into reliable, repeatable systems—from bringing new cloud providers online to rolling out configuration and upgrades safely across the entire fleet.

This is a hands‑on software engineering role with ownership from design through production. You’ll build APIs, controllers, and automation that make infrastructure easier to operate, reduce configuration drift, and bring GPU capacity online seamlessly to power the AI inference business growth.

EXAMPLE INITIATIVES

• Unify Kubernetes platform configuration under GitOps, replacing duplicated cluster manifests with shared configuration and explicit provider overrides.

• Automate cluster onboarding and provisioning with reusable infrastructure templates, readiness checks, and recoverable workflows.

• Build controllers and rollout mechanisms for fleet upgrades and workload‑aware maintenance.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Design, build, and operate services, APIs, and Kubernetes controllers that automate cluster lifecycle management.

• Develop reusable Terraform modules and GitOps configuration that work across cloud and GPU infrastructure providers.

• Make infrastructure changes safe through validation, staged rollouts, clear ownership boundaries, and tested recovery paths.

• Build observability into automation so engineers can understand progress, diagnose failures, and retry operations safely.

• Partner with infrastructure and workload teams to define platform interfaces, resolve operational pain points, and take projects from design through adoption.

REQUIREMENTS

• Experience building and owning production infrastructure software or distributed systems.

• Strong programming skills in Go or another systems or backend language, with the ability to contribute to a Go codebase.

• Deep experience with Kubernetes infrastructure, including developing controllers or operators and understanding reconciliation, custom resources, and failure handling.

• Practical experience with infrastructure as code and GitOps tools such as Terraform and Flux or Argo CD.

• Strong Linux, networking, and debugging fundamentals, with sound judgment about reliability and the impact of production changes.

• Ability to turn ambiguous operational problems into maintainable software and communicate design tradeoffs clearly.

NICE TO HAVE

• Experience managing Kubernetes fleets across multiple clouds or GPU infrastructure providers.

• Contributions to Kubernetes or infrastructure open source projects, or experience with workflow orchestration and progressive delivery.

BENEFITS

• Competitive compensation, including meaningful equity

• (U.S. only) 100% coverage of medical, dental, and vision insurance for employee and dependents

• Flexible PTO policy including company wide Winter Break (our offices are closed from Christmas Eve to New Year's Day!)

• Paid parental leave

• Fertility and family‑building stipend through Carrot

• (U.S. only) Company‑facilitated 401(k)

• Exposure to a variety of ML startups, offering unparalleled learning and networking opportunities.

At Baseten, we are committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace. We provide equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, genetic information, disability, or veteran status.

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and will consider qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with applicable law (by example, the requirements of the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, where applicable).