Staff Cloud-Native Platform Architect

nSCALE; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 220,000 - 290,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical insurance

Dental insurance

Vision insurance

Flexible paid time off

Parental leave

Retirement plan

Job summary

Nscale is seeking a Staff Cloud Native Software Engineer in San Francisco to shape Kubernetes-native control plane software across a platform area. You will define domain direction, make architectural decisions, and provide technical guidance while staying close to implementation to unblock delivery.

You will lead 2-4 team initiatives, drive coherence across teams, and ensure the domain evolves coherently as the platform grows. Strong Go and Linux fundamentals are essential for this role.

Qualifications

• Demonstrated experience designing and building Kubernetes-native systems, including controllers, operators, CRDs, and production reconciliation logic
• Strong track record of writing maintainable, testable, and resilient Go for long-lived distributed or control plane systems
• Proven ability to define technical direction across a domain that spans multiple engineers or teams
• Experience driving cross-team architecture and resolving ambiguity in interfaces, ownership, and design
• Deep understanding of Kubernetes control plane patterns, distributed systems failure modes, and operational trade-offs
• Experience creating engineering leverage through standards, reusable components, technical guidance, and architectural clarity
• Strong judgement in balancing short-term delivery with long-term platform health
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to align multiple teams around a coherent technical direction
• Solid grounding in Linux, networking, and infrastructure fundamentals sufficient to debug cross-layer issues
• Experience mentoring other engineers and raising the technical quality of work beyond your immediate team

Responsibilities

• Own and evolve the technical direction for a defined cloud-native platform domain, such as control plane orchestration, infrastructure lifecycle, platform APIs, or workload management
• Design and review Kubernetes-native systems that span multiple components or teams within that domain
• Make architectural decisions that balance delivery needs, operational realities, and long-term maintainability
• Resolve ambiguity in architecture, interfaces, and system boundaries for cross-team work
• Act as a technical escalation point for the most complex issues within the domain
• Lead technically critical initiatives that span 2-4 teams or a defined platform area
• Unblock delivery by clarifying direction, reducing technical ambiguity, and resolving hard design problems
• Contribute hands-on where necessary to validate patterns, de-risk complex implementation work, or accelerate critical delivery
• Ensure systems in the domain are observable, supportable, and safe to run in production
• Mentor Senior and mid-level engineers in Kubernetes-native design, distributed systems thinking, and production engineering

Job description

Nscale is seeking a Staff Cloud Native Software Engineer in San Francisco to shape Kubernetes-native control plane software across a platform area. You will define domain direction, make architectural decisions, and provide technical guidance while staying close to implementation to unblock delivery.

You will lead 2-4 team initiatives, drive coherence across teams, and ensure the domain evolves coherently as the platform grows. Strong Go and Linux fundamentals are essential for this role.