Staff Systems Engineer - Architect High-Performance CI Infra

Blacksmith Software Inc.; New York (NY); On-site; USD 190,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Blacksmith Software Inc. is seeking a Staff Systems Engineer to set the technical direction for core infrastructure, owning architecture and complex system problems. This role operates at the organizational level, mentoring senior talent and driving production outcomes.

You will be one of the key technical authorities, raising engineering standards, and ensuring reliability and performance at scale across our CI-related platforms.

Qualifications

• Expertise in virtualization technologies and tradeoffs (Firecracker, QEMU, Cloud Hypervisor).
• Experience with distributed storage systems (Ceph) and storage I/O tuning.
• Proficiency with Linux primitives (eBPF, cgroups, namespaces).
• Proven track record of influencing direction as an individual contributor or lead.
• Strong communication to technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Own and drive the architectural direction for critical infrastructure platforms.
• Translate business and product strategy into long-term technical roadmaps and execution plans.
• Accountable for production outcomes, including reliability, performance, and operational excellence.
• Mentor senior engineers and act as a force multiplier.
• Operate effectively in ambiguous problem spaces where both the problem and the solution need to be defined.

Skills

Architecture direction

Roadmap planning

Reliability engineering

Mentorship

Communication

Tools

Firecracker

QEMU

Cloud Hypervisor

Ceph

eBPF

cgroups

namespaces

Job description

Blacksmith Software Inc. is seeking a Staff Systems Engineer to set the technical direction for core infrastructure, owning architecture and complex system problems. This role operates at the organizational level, mentoring senior talent and driving production outcomes.

You will be one of the key technical authorities, raising engineering standards, and ensuring reliability and performance at scale across our CI-related platforms.