Senior Staff Software Engineer, Storage

About This Role

The Cloud Storage team at Crusoe is seeking a Senior Staff Software Engineer to serve as a primary architect and visionary for our storage strategy. While a Staff Engineer leads features, a Senior Staff Engineer defines the multi-year technical roadmap that underpins our AI-scale infrastructure. You will be a multiplier, responsible for the architectural strategy, integrity and global scalability of our bespoke storage services. You will work at the physics of the stack, bridging the gap between high-performance NVMe hardware and globally distributed, S3-competitive object stores.

What You’ll Be Working On

• Architectural Vision & Strategy: Define and drive the long-term technical strategy for Crusoe’s storage engine. Identify industry trends (e.g., CXL, NVMe-oF) and integrate them into a cohesive roadmap.
• System Programming Expertise: Leverage proven experience in system programming with languages such as C, C++, Go, and/or Rust to build the foundations of our V2 storage re-architecture.
• Storage Protocols: Architect and implement solutions utilizing industry-standard storage protocols such as NFS, SMB, iSCSI, and NVMe/TCP.
• Open Source Stewardship: Drive and maintain a track record of contributions to the open-source community (e.g., Ceph, GlusterFS, Lustre, Spectrum Scale, OpenEBS).
• Technical Authority: Serve as the final arbiter for critical architecture decisions across the Foundations organization. Lead complex design reviews that intersect storage, networking, and virtualization.
• Deep Performance Engineering: Lead "tiger teams" to solve the most ambiguous and difficult bottlenecks in the stack-from kernel-level IO context switching to global tail-latency in distributed clusters.
• Strategic Collaboration: Work closely with Executive Leadership and Product to align technical capabilities with business milestones, such as our imminent path to IPO.

What You’ll Bring to the Team

• Cloud Storage Expertise: 12+ years of experience building and operating large-scale, complex distributed cloud computing infrastructure products.
• Troubleshooting & Tuning: Strong troubleshooting and performance tuning skills; ability to profile and optimize the entire IO path.
• High-Drive Mindset: Self-motivation to thrive in a fast-paced environment with a high degree of ownership and minimal supervision.
• Masters of Consistency & Durability: Deep theoretical and practical knowledge of distributed state and data protection at petabyte scale.
• Software Engineering Fundamentals: Mastery of professional software engineering practices for the full SDLC, including coding standards, build processes, and testing.
• Communication & Collaboration: Ability to champion and lead initiatives across the engineering organization, such as tech talks and technical reading groups.

Bonus Points

• Public Cloud & AI/ML: Expertise in one or more Public Cloud offerings (AWS, GCP, Azure, OCI) and familiarity with AI/ML frameworks (PyTorch, Tensorflow, JAX) and MLOps.
• High-Throughput I/O: Experience with cutting-edge I/O architectures like DAOS or SPDK.
• Networking Foundations: Background in RDMA and high-performance networking, including SmartNICs and RoCEv2.
• Distributed Systems Mastery: Experience with highly available and scalable systems such as Cassandra, MongoDB, Redis, or Kafka.
• Theoretical Depth: Strong knowledge of distributed systems fundamentals including CAP Theorem, Paxos/RAFT, consistent hashing, and sharding strategies.
• Education: Advanced degree (Master's or PhD) in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.

Benefits

• Competitive compensation
• Restricted Stock Units
• Paid time off & paid holidays
• Comprehensive health, dental & vision insurance
• Employer contributions to HSA account
• Paid parental leave
• Paid life insurance, short-term and long-term disability
• Professional development & tuition reimbursement
• Mental health & wellness support
• Commuter benefits (parking & transit)
• Cell phone stipend
• 401(k) Retirement plan with company match up to 4% of salary
• Volunteer time off

Compensation Range

Compensation will be paid in the range of up to $245,000 - $290,000 + Bonus. Restricted Stock Units are included in all offers. Compensation to be determined by the applicant's knowledge, education, and abilities, as well as internal equity and alignment with market data.