Principal Software Engineer – Rack Scale Systems Infrastructure
NVIDIA
Opportunity published from Workday · applications stay with the original hiring source.
About the opportunity
At NVIDIA, as a Principal Rack Scale Systems Infrastructure Engineer, you will build and guide the development of software systems supporting upcoming rack-scale infrastructure products and services.
This exceptional role sits where software meets hardware, focusing on control planes, state machines, orchestration systems, firmware, OS lifecycle, and networking fabrics.
Your task is to compose infrastructure-as-a-service control plane software that converts complex rack-scale hardware into dependable, manageable, and programmable infrastructure for NVIDIA, partners, and leading cloud and enterprise clients globally.
Key responsibilities
- Define the complete software architecture for rack-scale infrastructure products and services, covering control plane services, infrastructure management, firmware, operating systems, kernel drivers, networking fabrics, accelerator software, and user-mode manageability software.
- Use Kubernetes and cloud-native primitives as an infrastructure fabric when appropriate, including controllers, operators, reconciliation loops, and open source components operating safely at rack and fleet scale.
- Bridge hardware and software teams across firmware, BMC, BIOS, boot flows, OS images, drivers, networking, NVLink domains, InfiniBand, GPUs, DPUs, CPUs, and system management interfaces.
- Partner directly with hyperscalers, CSPs, enterprise customers, internal component leads, vendors, and business partners to align infrastructure capabilities with real-world deployment and integration needs.
- Mentor senior engineers and technical leads, raising the engineering bar for large-scale networked systems, foundational software, and rack-scale control plane development.
- Make high-quality technical decisions in ambiguous environments, balancing customer needs, schedule, hardware realities, software maintainability, open source adoption, and long-term infrastructure evolution.
Qualifications
- BS or MS in Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent experience, with 15+ years of proven experience in systems architecture, system software, distributed systems, infrastructure control planes, or infrastructure engineering.
- Solid architectural knowledge of coordination frameworks, state machines, declarative APIs, reconciliation loops, lifecycle orchestration, failure handling, upgrade and rollback workflows, and distributed systems tradeoffs.
- Practical coding skills in Go, C++, or Rust, encompassing the capability to write, review, and direct production-quality infrastructure software.
- Experience with Kubernetes or similar orchestration systems, Linux-based infrastructure software, OS rollout and image management, kernel or driver interactions, firmware lifecycle, and hardware bring-up workflows.
- Strong understanding of data center networking technologies and protocols, such as Ethernet, InfiniBand, RDMA, fabric-level manageability, and complex accelerator-based systems including GPUs, DPUs, FPGAs, or custom silicon.
- Expertise in in-band and out-of-band management architectures, including BMCs, Redfish, IPMI, and related system management protocols.
- Experience crafting software intended for open source release and using AI-assisted development tools responsibly as an engineering multiplier.
Nice to have
- Built software supporting multiple adoption models including internal services, CSP-integrated offerings, reusable libraries, and customer-extensible APIs, with strong Rust skills.
- Multiplied team impact through reference implementations, design reviews, shared libraries, architecture docs, dev workflows, and hands-on fleet-scale provisioning and remediation.
- Led across the full data center product lifecycle from inception, pre- and post-silicon, manufacturing, deployment, to operations.
- Deep experience with rack- or cluster-scale systems spanning compute, networking, storage, accelerators, firmware, and infra management as one operational domain.
Benefits
- Eligible for equity and comprehensive company benefits.
Job details
- Expected base salary range: 272,000 USD – 431,250 USD, determined by location, experience, and other objective job-related factors.
- Applications accepted at least until November 13, 2026.
- Posting for an existing vacancy.
About the company
NVIDIA has been transforming computer graphics, PC gaming, and accelerated computing for more than 25 years through innovation fueled by great technology and amazing people.
Today, the company is tapping into the unlimited potential of AI to define the next era of computing, using GPUs as the brains of computers, robots, and self-driving cars.
NVIDIA offers a diverse, supportive environment where everyone is inspired to do their best work and make a lasting impact on the world.
Additional information
- NVIDIA uses AI tools in its recruiting processes.
Application: UpVagas lists this opportunity from the hiring company or its recruitment platform. The application is completed at the original source.
