Principal Infrastructure Architect

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in California.

📋 Description

• Defining and taking ownership of DigitalOcean's hardware architectures for next-generation computing environments encompassing our CPU, GPU, Storage, and Infrastructure Server SKU products, while adeptly navigating technology shifts, networking topologies, and AI/ML requirements.

• Acting as DigitalOcean's primary technical authority for infrastructure technologies, collaborating with Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) in the Product and Hardware Engineering teams.

• Offering leadership and direction as a principal stakeholder in the hardware selection and qualification process.

• Promoting emerging technical concepts to senior leadership to guide product and business strategies.

• Designing end-to-end server architectures in partnership with vendors and teams to accommodate a wide array of CPU, GPU, and other emerging workloads.

• Developing comprehensive storage topologies with vendor teams to support various workloads across performance, capacity, and archival tiers, transitioning from direct-attached to disaggregated and software-defined storage.

• Leading proof-of-concept (PoC) projects for novel infrastructure technologies and converting successful pilots into global deployment standards.

• Mentoring engineers at all levels and fostering a culture of technical excellence, inclusivity, and impact.

• Representing DigitalOcean in the broader community by attending conferences and contributing to papers and presentations.

⛳️ Requirements

• Over 10 years of experience in server architecture, storage architecture, infrastructure engineering, or a related field, with a proven track record of owning and deploying designs at scale.

• Extensive expertise in server and storage hardware platforms, coupled with a strong working knowledge of compute technologies across the spectrum—from commodity CPU servers to rack-scale GPU and xPU platforms.

• Practical experience in driving AI/ML hardware roadmaps and the capacity to translate evolving silicon, accelerator, memory, and storage trends into future-proof platform designs.

• Understanding of emerging and non-traditional hardware approaches, including CXL memory pooling, DPUs/SmartNICs, disaggregated storage, and computational storage.

• Proven ability to lead proof-of-concept initiatives and scale successful pilots into global deployment standards.

• Strong skills in cross-functional collaboration, working alongside technical and business teams as well as external vendors and partners.

• Exceptional communication and leadership skills, including mentoring engineers and representing the company at conferences and through technical papers.

🏝️ Benefits

• We prioritize your well-being. Regardless of your location, we offer a competitive range of benefits to support you, from our Employee Assistance Program to Local Employee Meetups and a flexible time-off policy, among others. While our benefits philosophy remains consistent globally, specific offerings may vary based on local regulations and preferences.

• We emphasize career development. At DigitalOcean, you will be positioned to do the best work of your career, collaborating with some of the industry's brightest and most innovative minds. We are a high-performance organization that challenges you to think big. Our organizational development team provides resources to ensure your continuous growth. Employees receive reimbursement for relevant conferences, training, and education, and all have access to LinkedIn Learning's 10,000+ courses to support ongoing development.

• We reward our employees. The salary range for this position is determined by market data, relevant years of experience, and skills. You may also qualify for a bonus in addition to your base salary, with amounts based on company and individual performance. Additionally, eligible employees receive equity compensation, including equity grants upon hire and the option to participate in our Employee Stock Purchase Program.