Staff Software Engineer - Managed Kubernetes Software

Frontdoor Defense; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 314,000 - 465,000; Full time

Job summary

Lambda is building the AI Cloud of the future. We are seeking a Staff Engineer to help develop our Managed Kubernetes platform, a foundation for AI training and inference at scale.

You will drive architecture, collaborate across teams, and synthesize infrastructure domains to deliver reliable, high-performance systems. As part of the Orchestration team, you’ll shape the technical vision for services such as Managed Kubernetes and higher-level platform components, working with GPU-accelerated

Responsibilities

• Help drive the technical vision for Lambda's managed orchestration services, including Managed Kubernetes, Managed Slurm on Kubernetes, and higher-level platform services.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to design holistic infrastructure across compute, network, storage and security.

Job description

Staff Software Engineer - Managed Kubernetes

Build architecture for Lambda's managed Kubernetes platform serving AI workloads

Location: San Francisco, California California Bellevue, Washington

Compensation: $314,000 - 465,000 USD / year

About The Role

Staff Engineer

Lambda is building the AI Cloud of the future. We are seeking a Staff Engineer to help our development of our Managed Kubernetes platform. Think GKE, but purpose-built for AI workloads and running on bare metal. This is a foundational technical leadership role where you will shape the infrastructure that powers the next generation of AI training and inference at scale.

As a Staff Engineer on our Orchestration team, you will collaborate to help drive the technical vision for Lambda's managed orchestration services, including Managed Kubernetes, Managed Slurm on Kubernetes, and higher-level platform services for inference and AIOps. You'll work at the intersection of distributed systems, GPU-accelerated computing, and Cloud Native infrastructure to build systems that are reliable, performant, and elegantly simple for our customers.

This is not a role for someone who just operates Kubernetes; it is a technical leadership role for an engineer who has synthesized the core domains of infrastructure (compute, network, storage, security) and can design holistic solutions across all of them. You'll be working closely with NVIDIA's open-source ecosystem, and partnering with internal teams across the stack to deliver a world‑class managed platform.

You are a creative, innovative engineer who operates at high velocity. You don't just solve problems. You find elegant solutions and ship them quickly. You embrace modern tools and AI-assisted development (like Claude Code) to accelerate your productivity and multiply your impact. You're energized by building new things, not maintaining the status quo.