Staff Engineer & Tech Lead - Kubernetes SaaS Platform

NetBox Labs; United States; Remote; USD 180,000 - 250,000; Full time

Job summary

NetBox Labs seeks a Staff Software Engineer/Tech Lead for NetBox Delivery, a new team in the Applications group. You will set the technical direction, write significant code, and ship the software that runs NetBox across Cloud and Enterprise deployments.

You’ll join early, bringing strong Python, SaaS, and Kubernetes skills, while mentoring teammates and shaping architecture and RFCs. This remote role accepts US-based candidates.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of software development experience with ownership of a production system or platform area.
• Strong Python skills and production SaaS experience; Django and Postgres preferred.
• Experience building software on Kubernetes (operators/controllers or deployment tooling) with reconciliation loops and custom resources.
• Observability into applications using OpenTelemetry and Sentry.
• Hands-on with delivery stack: AWS, Kubernetes/Helm, GitHub Actions, ArgoCD/FluxCD, Terraform, Prometheus and Grafana.
• Experience leading engineering work without formal manager authority, including mentoring others.
• Hands-on experience building inside an AI-augmented development harness (Claude Code and related workflows).
• Track record of making technical decisions under ambiguity and driving cross-team migrations.

Responsibilities

• Design and build software that installs, upgrades, and runs NetBox, including operators, controllers, internal APIs, and release tooling.
• Contribute to NetBox and core plugins to improve production reliability from startup to Postgres performance.
• Incorporate observability standards and set testing, documentation, and SLO practices for the team.
• Own the technical direction and architecture for NetBox in Cloud and Enterprise, as the lead technical decision maker.
• Lead and mentor engineers, including SREs, through design reviews and code reviews.
• Coordinate with NetBox Core and Cloud/Enterprise teams to define release contracts and drive RFC-driven changes.
• Serve as escalation point during incidents and ensure postmortem actions are completed.

Skills

Python

Django

PostgreSQL

SaaS experience

Observability

OpenTelemetry

Sentry

Leadership

AI-augmented development

RFC processes

Incident response

Cloud-native

Cloud/AWS

Kubernetes

Tools

Kubernetes

AWS

Helm

GitHub Actions

ArgoCD

FluxCD

Terraform

Prometheus

Grafana

Job description

This is a Staff-level Tech Lead role - a relatively rare hybrid that combines hands-on engineering with organizational influence. At companies of NetBox Labs' stage (VC-backed, growth-phase), Staff + Tech Lead titles carry significant weight and are often stepping stones to Principal Engineer or Engineering Manager paths.

Compensation context: No salary is listed, but Staff Software Engineers with Kubernetes/SaaS/Python expertise in the US typically command $180,000–$250,000+ total compensation at VC-backed startups, depending on equity and stage. The absence of a posted range is worth raising early in the process.

• Kubernetes operators and controllers - extremely high-demand in platform/infra engineering
• AI-augmented development workflows (Claude Code, agentic tooling) - a fast-growing, differentiated skill set
• Open source stewardship and cross-team RFC-driven architecture
• Observability engineering (OpenTelemetry, Sentry, Prometheus) - perennially in demand

Green flags: Being one of the first engineers on a new team means high impact and visibility. The company is backed by credible investors and has a real open-source community. The culture values simplicity and clear communication - positive signals for work-life balance.

Watch for: Incident escalation responsibilities and broad scope (SaaS + self-managed delivery) can be demanding at an early-stage team. Confirm on-call rotation expectations and team growth plans during interviews.

NetBox Labs is seeking a Staff Software Engineer and Tech Lead for NetBox Delivery, a new team in our Applications group.

NetBox is a product that reaches people in a few ways: our open source community runs NetBox OSS; commercial customers use NetBox Cloud (SaaS) or NetBox Enterprise (self-managed). NetBox Delivery owns everything between a NetBox Core release and a healthy, running instance on Cloud and Enterprise. We work closely with NetBox Core, the team that builds NetBox and its core plugins. We ship the software, keep an eye on it in production, and when something breaks, we fix it at the source rather than working around it.

As Tech Lead, you set the technical direction for NetBox Delivery and write much of its code. You bring strong software engineering skills, SaaS experience, and hands-on DevOps and Kubernetes skills. You will be one of the first engineers on this team and help shape how it works.

In this role you will:

• Design and build the software that installs, upgrades, and runs NetBox, such as Kubernetes operators, controllers, internal APIs, and release tooling
• Contribute to NetBox and its core plugins, in collaboration with NetBox Core, to make them faster and more reliable in production, from application startup to Postgres query performance
• Build observability into the software the team owns, and set the team's standards for testing, documentation, and SLOs
• Own the technical direction and architecture for how NetBox is built, released, and run on Cloud and Enterprise, as the team's primary technical decision maker
• Lead and mentor the team's engineers, including its SRE, through design and code review
• Work with NetBox Core and the Cloud, Enterprise, and Foundations teams to define release contracts and drive cross-team changes through RFCs
• Act as a technical escalation point during incidents and make sure postmortem actions get done

Requirements:

• 7+ years of software development experience, including technical ownership of a production system or platform area
• Strong Python skills and experience with production SaaS applications; Django and Postgres preferred
• Experience building software on top of Kubernetes, such as operators, controllers, or deployment tooling, with a solid understanding of reconciliation loops, custom resources, and the Kubernetes API
• Experience building observability into applications, including error reporting, distributed tracing, metrics, and structured logging, with tools such as OpenTelemetry and Sentry
• Hands-on experience with several tools in our delivery stack: AWS, Kubernetes and Helm, GitHub Actions, ArgoCD or FluxCD, Terraform, and Prometheus and Grafana
• Experience leading engineering work without formal manager authority, including mentoring other engineers
• Hands-on experience building inside an AI-augmented development harness, including Claude Code and the workflows that make agentic tooling reliable
• A track record of making technical decisions under ambiguity and driving work across team boundaries, from writing the RFC to getting a cross-team migration done

Nice to haves:

• Rust or Go programming experience
• Production experience with Django and Postgres at scale, including schema design, migration risk, and query performance
• Familiarity with the NetBox ecosystem or network automation
• Experience working in a B2B software startup or high-growth organization
• Open source contributions or project involvement
• Experience with self-managed or on-premises delivery
• Container build skills, including base image design and Python dependency management
• Experience with supply chain security, such as vulnerability scanning, image signing and SOC 2 controls for build pipelines

About NetBox Labs:

NetBox Labs helps companies build and manage complex networks. We help customers accelerate network automation by delivering open, composable products and supporting the network automation community.

NetBox Labs is the commercial steward of open source NetBox, the world's most popular network source of truth, and Orb, the next-generation open source network observability platform. Our products include NetBox Enterprise, a fully supported self-managed NetBox with advanced features, and NetBox Cloud, a secure, scalable, and reliable SaaS edition of NetBox.

NetBox powers thousands of companies, and NetBox Labs is backed by investment from Notable Capital (formerly GGV), Grafana Labs CEO Raj Dutt, Flybridge, IBM, Salesforce Ventures, and Mango Capital.

Our culture and values:

• We own and solve problems with high attention to detail.
• Our open source contributors, users, customers & team are all part of our community. When our community wins, we win.
• We prioritize simplicity and think twice before adding complexity.
• Clear communication helps keep our team aligned and collaborating smoothly.

NetBox Labs is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We believe diverse teams build better software, and we welcome applicants of every race, color, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, and veteran status. If you need accommodation at any point in the process, just let us know.

Yes, the role is remote. The location hint indicates it is open to candidates in the USA, though no specific city or state is required.