Staff Engineer

DigitalOcean

$191K — $239K *
Information Technology
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 5+ years of experience with Kubernetes and AI infrastructure.
  • Proven track record with AI-specific Kubernetes schedulers and orchestrators.
  • In-depth knowledge of GPU architectures and hardware topology impacts.
  • Skilled in balancing costs and performance through resource management techniques.
  • Experience with container runtime internals and security in multi-tenant environments.
  • Strong understanding of modern AI/ML frameworks and architectures.
  • Expertise in observability metrics for AI workloads.

Responsibilities

  • Architect large-scale scheduling for Kubernetes clusters with 1,000+ nodes.
  • Maximize GPU utilization in multi-tenant settings with innovative allocation techniques.
  • Optimize pod placement and reduce communication latency through topology-aware scheduling.
  • Enhance cluster performance by tuning etcd and implementing in-place pod resizing.
  • Design secure environments for executing untrusted AI code safely.
  • Orchestrate model weight distribution and enable long-running training fault recovery.
  • Implement robust gang scheduling for multi-node training jobs without deadlocks.
  • Manage disaggregated AI inference pipelines and ensure component coordination.

Benefits

  • Hybrid work flexibility with a blend of on-site and remote work.
  • Opportunities for professional development and skill enhancement.
  • Access to cutting-edge AI technologies and infrastructure.
  • Collaborative work environment with a focus on innovation.
  • Engagement in challenging projects that impact large-scale AI deployments.
Full Job Description
We are seeking a Staff AI Orchestration Engineer to lead the design, optimization, and scaling of our Kubernetes-based AI infrastructure. In this role, you will tackle the unique challenges of massive-scale AI workloads, focusing on throughput, GPU utilization, and fault tolerance to support next-generation distributed training and disaggregated inference.
What You'll Do:
  • Architect Large-Scale Scheduling: Design and optimize hierarchical, high-throughput scheduling architectures for massive Kubernetes clusters (1,000+ nodes, 10,000+ pods), utilizing techniques like optimistic concurrency, multi-scheduler architectures, and batch dispatching.
  • Maximize GPU Utilization: Eliminate GPU waste in multi-tenant environments by implementing fractional GPU allocation, leveraging mechanisms like KAI-Scheduler's Reservation Pods or hard-isolation tools like HAMi, and configuring time-based fairshare scheduling to balance over-quota pool access.
  • Optimize Placement & Topology: Deploy topology-aware scheduling to align pod placement with physical hardware dimensions, such as NVLink connections, PCIe lanes, and NUMA nodes, minimizing communication latency for multi-GPU operations.
  • Enhance Cluster Performance: Reduce scheduling latency and API server load by tuning etcd, optimizing admission webhooks, and implementing in-place pod resizing (VPA) or in-place container restarts.
  • Secure AI Workloads: Design secure, multi-layered isolation environments and Agent Sandboxes to safely execute untrusted LLM-generated code, utilizing namespaces, Kata Containers, gVisor, or Firecracker microVMs.
  • Manage AI Storage & Fault Tolerance: Orchestrate efficient model weight distribution using OCI Image Volumes and implement Checkpoint/Restore capabilities (via CRIU and NVIDIA cuda-checkpoint) for long-running training fault recovery.
  • Enable Distributed Training: Implement robust gang scheduling to prevent deadlocks in tightly-coupled, multi-node training jobs (e.g., MPI, PyTorch) using tools like Volcano, Kueue, or LeaderWorkerSet (LWS).
  • Orchestrate Complex Inference: Implement and manage disaggregated AI inference pipelines using frameworks like NVIDIA Grove, coordinating multicomponent deployments (e.g., prefill leaders, decode workers, KV routers) with multilevel autoscaling and explicit startup ordering.
What You'll Bring:
  • Kubernetes Expertise: Deep technical knowledge of Kubernetes core components, API performance optimization, Dynamic Resource Allocation (DRA), and the custom resource definitions (CRDs) required for advanced scheduling.
  • Advanced Scheduling Experience: Proven track record working with AI-specific Kubernetes schedulers and orchestrators such as Kueue, Volcano, Apache YuniKorn, or Run:ai / KAI-Scheduler.
  • Hardware & Topology Acumen: Deep understanding of GPU architectures (NVIDIA and AMD) and interconnects, understanding how hardware topology directly impacts training and inference speeds.
  • Resource Management Skills: Experience balancing performance and cost using Dominant Resource Fairness (DRF), load-aware scheduling, and bin-packing vs. spread strategies to maximize node vacancy or workload resources.
  • Systems Isolation Background: Familiarity with container runtime internals (containerd, runc), rootless containers, and security contexts to manage blast radiuses in shared AI infrastructure.
  • AI/ML Framework Knowledge: Strong understanding of modern LLM serving architectures, prefill-decode disaggregation, and engines like vLLM, Triton, or SGLang.
  • Observability Proficiency: Experience tracking deep infrastructure and inference metrics, including Time To First Token (TTFT), Time Per Output Token (TPOT), GPU memory pressure, and identifying hardware failures like XID errors.
Compensation Range:
  • $191,200.00 - $239,000.00

*This is a hybrid role



#LI-Hybrid

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