Software Engineer - Machine Lifecycle

Iceberg; New York (NY); On-site; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Iceberg is seeking a Software Engineer to build automation for the lifecycle of our physical infrastructure. You will design end-to-end pipelines that take a server from racked and powered on through hardware discovery, firmware/configuration, OS installation, validation, and production.

The role emphasizes Python automation, Ansible, and GitOps to replace manual runbooks with auditable, declarative processes across a large fleet of machines.

Qualifications

• Strong Python development experience for automation and tooling.
• Hands-on Ansible experience — writing and maintaining playbooks and roles.
• Good understanding of CI/CD, testing and version-controlled infrastructure.
• An automation-first mindset and interest in GitOps/declarative infrastructure.
• Working knowledge of Linux, including the boot process and system services.
• Strong engineering judgment, especially around failure handling, retries and auditability.
• Curious about how physical infrastructure works and how to automate it.

Responsibilities

• Design and build end-to-end machine lifecycle pipeline, from network boot through production handoff.
• Automate hardware bring-up using BMC, Redfish and IPMI, including firmware and inventory management.
• Build automated OS provisioning using PXE/UEFI HTTP boot and unattended installation.
• Develop Python and Ansible automation to configure machines into final roles.
• Apply GitOps and CI/CD principles to infrastructure changes and fleet management.
• Build automated health checks, stress testing and hardware validation.
• Develop lifecycle state management and automated transitions for machines across the fleet.
• Instrument the process with metrics and logging to identify failures and bottlenecks.
• Collaborate with datacenter and HPC teams to turn operational knowledge into automation.

Skills

Python automation

Ansible

CI/CD

Linux

GitOps

Troubleshooting

Automation mindset

Tools

PXE/Uefi provisioning

BMC/Redfish/IPMI

Job description

I'm working with a leading quantitative trading firm whose technology infrastructure is a major part of its competitive edge. They're looking for a Software Engineer to build the automation behind the lifecycle of their physical infrastructure.

The goal is simple: make bringing a machine into production as close to zero-touch as possible.

You'll build the pipeline that takes a server from the moment it's racked and powered on through hardware discovery, firmware and BIOS configuration, OS installation, configuration, validation and finally production. The entire process is treated like software, in that it is version controlled, tested, reviewed and automated.

The team is applying GitOps principles to physical infrastructure, with the desired state of the fleet defined in Git and automation continuously reconciling the environment against it. You'll be replacing manual runbooks and operational knowledge with reliable, auditable code.

What you'll be doing

• Design and build the end-to- end machine lifecycle pipeline, from network boot through production handoff.
• Automate hardware bring-up using BMC, Redfish and IPMI, including firmware, BIOS and inventory management.
• Build automated OS provisioning using PXE / UEFI HTTP boot and unattended installation.
• Develop Python and Ansible automation to configure machines into their final roles.
• Apply GitOps and CI/CD principles to infrastructure changes and fleet management.
• Build automated health checks, stress testing and hardware validation.
• Develop lifecycle state management and automated transitions for machines across the fleet.
• Instrument the process with metrics and logging to identify failures and bottlenecks.
• Work closely with datacenter and HPC teams to turn operational knowledge into automation.

What we're looking for

• Strong Python development experience, particularly for automation, tooling and services.
• Hands-on Ansible experience — writing and maintaining playbooks and roles rather than simply running them.
• Good understanding of CI/CD, testing and version-controlled infrastructure.
• A genuine automation-first mindset and interest in GitOps/declarative infrastructure.
• Working knowledge of Linux, including the boot process and system services.
• Strong engineering judgement, particularly around failure handling, retries and auditability.
• Someone curious who enjoys getting deep into how physical infrastructure works and finding ways to automate it.

Experience with bare-metal provisioning, BMC/Redfish/IPMI, hardware validation, GitOps, datacenter or HPC environments would all be valuable, but aren't essential.

This is a particularly interesting role for someone who enjoys infrastructure at the physical level but thinks like a software engineer. You'll be building the systems that allow a large fleet of machines to effectively provision, configure, validate and manage itself rather than relying on people and manual runbooks.