# SW Engineer, Hardware and System Bring-up/Bootstrapping - Industrial Compute, Scaling

**Company:** [OpenAI](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/openai)
**Location:** Seattle, WA
**Role:** DevOps / SRE
**Salary:** $293k – $455k/yr
**Experience:** 5+ years
**Skills:** Kubernetes, Terraform, Chef, Linux, Pxe, Cloud-Init, Python, Go, Bash, Azure, AWS, GCP, Oci, Ansible, Networking
**Posted:** 2026-03-27

> Engineers handle hardware and system bring-up for industrial compute, bootstrapping bare metal nodes into schedulable Kubernetes fleet capacity. Requires 5+ years in Linux infrastructure, IaC tools like Terraform/Chef, and debugging boot/provisioning issues.

## Job Description

## Key Responsibilities
- Own the end-to-end bring-up and bootstrap path for new systems and compute nodes from bare metal/early access in lab or production/cloud environments to schedulable fleet capacity: image build, user-data/config, cluster join, and readiness gates.
- Build and maintain “first-class” golden image + provisioning workflows across lab, and production environments, including working with partner-provided base images and reconciling OS/version requirements.
- Work with partner teams to integrate nodes into our fleet infrastructure and IaC pipelines (**Terraform**, **Chef**, etc.), ensuring cloud resources map cleanly onto our internal lifecycle expectations (e.g., VMSS/instance pools, image references).
- Partner with scheduling and platform owners to ensure new hardware is reachable and scheduled (pool definitions, network/WAN connectivity/routing, admission controls, platform-specific quirks), including cases where new SKUs require changes for scheduling integration.
- Drive registration and inventory correctness (e.g., systems that track nodes and their metadata), including hands-on support to get nodes registered and visible end-to-end.
- Collaborate with partner teams to implement baseline health + telemetry bring-up: minimum viable health signals, pass/fail checks, and automated reporting suitable for early ramp decisions.
- Debug issues across layers: **PXE/boot-loader**, **UEFI/BIOS**, **BMC**, OS bring-up, NIC/network reachability, **kubelet/control-plane** connectivity, storage constraints, and early rack/lab realities.

## Qualifications
- **BS in CS/EE** (or equivalent practical experience).
- **5+ years** of experience in systems SW development and building/operating **Linux**-based infrastructure in production or pre-production environments.
- Strong, hands-on experience with:
  - **Kubernetes** cluster operations (node lifecycle, bootstrap/join, debugging control-plane connectivity)
  - **Infrastructure-as-Code** / config management (**Terraform**, **Chef/Ansible**, etc.)
  - Provisioning and imaging (**PXE/iPXE**, golden images, **cloud-init/user-data**)
  - Networking fundamentals (**L2/L3**, routing, **DNS**, firewalling; comfort debugging reachability)
- Proven ability to write automation in **Python/Go/Bash** and ship operational tooling/runbooks.

## Preferred Skills
- Experience bringing up new hardware platforms (early silicon/servers/**NICs**) in a lab setting and turning them into stable fleet capacity.
- Multi-cloud operational experience (**Azure/GCP/AWS/OCI**), especially with compute pools (e.g., **VMSS** / instance pools).
- Experience building telemetry/health pipelines (agent-based metrics/logging, health rollups, readiness criteria).
- Familiarity with **WAN**, peering, and multi-site network concepts for cluster deployments.

## Similar roles

- [Tokens-as-a-Service (Taas) Software Engineer](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/dd1aa99d-7bef-4d7e-86a6-21e1657081e0) - OpenAI - San Francisco, CA - $293k – $455k/yr
- [Release Engineer, Consumer Products](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/3fd27ac1-871e-45ce-97d5-fcdf3a009a04) - OpenAI - San Francisco, CA - $293k – $325k/yr
- [Performance & Systems Engineer, Codex](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/6e2f7320-b90d-4dd7-b3de-227062aa5f7f) - OpenAI - San Francisco, CA - $295k – $445k/yr
- [Incident Response Manager - Product & Engineering](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/bfb64173-7a69-429e-82fb-bbdef5cd6fb0) - Anthropic - New York, NY - $290k – $365k/yr
- [Performance Engineer](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/2f854d35-4f6f-4256-8cfc-eab909438fde) - Anthropic - San Francisco, CA - $280k – $850k/yr

**Apply:** https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/a124e209-a26c-45ce-8e1a-51e51dcbc040
**Canonical:** https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/a124e209-a26c-45ce-8e1a-51e51dcbc040