Staff Infrastructure Design Engineer

digitalocean98; Seattle (WA); Hybrid; USD 195,000 - 239,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid role

Job summary

DigitalOcean seeks a Senior Hardware Engineer to lead hardware design requirements, coordinate with vendors, and develop scalable hardware roadmaps. You will drive automation and tooling for firmware and hardware configuration, while mentoring peers and participating in 24/7 on-call rotations. Hybrid role in a fast-paced cloud hardware environment.

You should have a technical degree and strong Linux, scripting, and hardware knowledge, with experience in data center scale and on-call readiness.

Qualifications

• BS in Computer Science or Engineering or equivalent experience.
• Strong understanding of x86 server hardware.
• Experience with liquid-cooled servers in datacenters.
• Experience with Ansible and Chef.
• Experience with Redfish, IPMI and Linux boot processes.

Responsibilities

• Lead hardware requirements with internal stakeholders.
• Coordinate with vendors to qualify and onboard new hardware.
• Develop and execute a hardware development roadmap.
• Build tools to orchestrate scaling of the hardware platform.
• Improve internal services used by stakeholders and customers.
• Serve as Tier 3 on-call for hardware issues in the DigitalOcean fleet.
• Participate in 24/7 on-call rotation.
• Advance firmware and configuration automation for hardware.
• Engage with vendors on automation features and bugs.
• Mentor teammates on CM best practices and documentation.

Skills

Linux

Python/Go

On-call

Networking

Communication

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or Engineering

Tools

Ansible

Chef

Job description

Dive in and do the best work of your career at DigitalOcean. Journey alongside a strong community of top talent who are relentless in their drive to build the simplest scalable cloud. If you have a growth mindset, naturally like to think big and bold, and are energized by the fast-paced environment of a true industry disruptor, you'll find your place here. We value winning together-while learning, having fun, and making a profound difference for the dreamers and builders in the world. We want people who are passionate about optimizing and troubleshooting data center hardware at mega-scale so our customers don't have to worry!

What You'll Be Doing:

• Lead projects with internal stakeholders to gather product requirements for hardware designs to meet the DigitalOcean mission
• Lead projects with vendors on specifying, qualifying, onboarding, and delivering new hardware to the DigitalOcean ecosystem
• Work on the development and execution of a hardware development roadmap to support product requirements
• Partner with peer teams to develop tools and processes to orchestrate scaling of the hardware platform
• Lead projects on internal roadmap to improve team-owned services for both internal stakeholders and customers
• Act as Tier 3 escalation on-call for triage, investigation, and resolution of system hardware issues in the DigitalOcean fleet (both customer-facing and internal)
• Participate in 24/7 on-call rotation with other members of the team
• Improve existing firmware and hardware configuration automation/validation, for both hardware platforms and components (such as NIC, Storage and BMC)
• Engage with hardware vendors about new automation features and existing bugs
• Mentor other DigitalOcean employees on configuration management best practices, troubleshooting intuition, hardware design, and clean documentation

What We'll Expect From You:

• Technical Degree (BS Computer Science/Engineering) or equivalent practical experience
• Strong understanding of x86 server hardware architecture and subsystems. Ideally, you've worked with non-x86 hardware too!
• Hands-on experience designing, implementing, and maintaining liquid-cooled server solutions in datacenter environments
• Demonstrated professional proficiency in configuration management best-practices (we use Ansible and Chef)
• Experience automating server components at large-scale using industry-standard tooling (Redfish, IPMI, etc) including a deep understanding of benchmarking, automating test frameworks, and process automation in general
• Practical knowledge of PXE boot, UEFI, Linux/OS boot, AMI/OEM BIOS distributions, OpenBMC/AMI/OEM BMC implementations, RAID and other storage resiliency technologies, and the full Network stack- from NIC firmware to TCP/IP
• Adept at Linux (or Unix) operating systems. You'll be spending a lot of time working in one!
• Comfortable with version control systems (we use Git) and proficient in at least one programming language (such as Python or Go)
• Ability to participate in 24/7 on-call rotation with other members of the team
• Excellent communication skills, both within the team and with the broader company
• Have an insatiable passion for hardware, both new and old

Compensation Range:

$195,000 - $239,000

*This is a hybrid role

JR: 2026-7805

#LI-Hybrid

Why You'll Like Working for DigitalOcean

We innovate with purpose. You'll be a part of a cutting-edge technology company with an upward trajectory, who are proud to simplify cloud and AI so builders can spend more time creating software that changes the world. As a member of the team, you will be a Shark who thinks big, bold, and scrappy, like an owner with a bias for action and a powerful sense of responsibility for customers, products, employees, and decisions. We prioritize career development. At DO, you'll do the best work of your career. You will work with some of the smartest and most interesting people in the industry. We are a high-performance organization that will always challenge you to think big. Our organizational development team will provide you with resources to ensure you keep growing. We provide employees with reimbursement for relevant conferences, training, and education. All employees have access to LinkedIn Learning's 10,000+ courses to support their continued growth and development. We care about your well-being. Regardless of your location, we will provide you with a competitive array of