
Staff Software Engineer, Systems Engineering Focus
Crusoe · San Francisco, CA
- On site
- Full-time
- $255,000 / year
- San Francisco, CA
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Subject: Interested in the Staff Software Engineer, Systems Engineering Focus role at Crusoe
Hi Dana — I came across the Staff Software Engineer, Systems Engineering Focus opening and wanted to reach out directly. I've spent the last few years doing exactly this kind of work, and Crusoe stood out because…
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Job highlights
- Design, build, and scale customer-facing managed services.
- Act as technical authority on Edge & Agents domain.
- Develop and maintain lightweight, high-reliability agents.
- Instrument low-level system metrics using eBPF.
- Provide technical leadership and mentor engineers.
About the role
Staff Software Engineer, Systems Engineering Focus
Crusoe is on a mission to accelerate the abundance of energy and intelligence. As the only vertically integrated AI infrastructure company built from the ground up, we own and operate each layer of the stack — from electrons to tokens — to power the world's most ambitious AI workloads. When you join Crusoe, you join a team that is building the future, faster.
We're in the midst of the greatest industrial revolution of our time. The demand for AI compute is boundless, and power is a bottleneck. We're solving that — with an energy-first approach that makes AI infrastructure better for the world and faster for the people innovating with AI.
We're looking for problem-solving, opportunity-finding teammates with a sense of urgency, who believe in the scale of our ambition and thrive on a path not fully paved — people who want to grow their careers alongside a team of experts across energy, manufacturing, data center construction, and cloud services.
If you want to do the most meaningful work of your career, help our customers and partners advance their AI strategies, and be part of a high-performing team that believes in each other, come build with us at Crusoe.
About the Role:
We are seeking a Staff Software Engineer to design, build, and scale Crusoe Cloud's customer-facing managed services. The Managed Platform Services team owns and operates multiple customer-facing products, with an active and growing roadmap. This is a full software engineering role — you'll ship customer-facing features, build systems from 0 to 1, and scale existing services alongside a team of strong generalist engineers. What sets you apart is your systems programming expertise, which you'll bring as a technical authority on our Edge & Agents domain: the software that runs directly on customer infrastructure. This agent code is mission-critical — a failure here is a customer production incident. You'll provide deeper technical oversight on existing, inflight, and planned edge systems while contributing broadly across the platform. This is a full-time position.
What You'll Be Working On:
- Customer-Facing Feature Development: Build and scale core platform services end-to-end — from greenfield 0-to-1 projects to scaling systems handling growing production traffic.
- Edge & Agents Technical Oversight: Serve as the team's subject matter expert on edge software. Review existing agent architectures, provide technical guidance on inflight designs, and shape how we build and operate software at the system level.
- Edge Agent Development: Build and maintain lightweight, high-reliability agents deployed on customer VMs. Minimize CPU/memory footprint without sacrificing observability coverage.
- Linux Kernel Metrics & eBPF: Instrument low-level system metrics using eBPF and procfs to power Crusoe's monitoring and telemetry pipeline.
- Packaging & Distribution: Own agent packaging and deployment via Helm charts, ensuring smooth delivery across customer environments.
- Pull-Based Scraping Architecture: Design and evolve the "pull" scraping logic that collects metrics from customer infrastructure with minimal operational overhead.
- Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner with Control Plane, Storage, and SRE teams to ensure agent data feeds are reliable, well-structured, and operationally sound.
- Cross-Team Bridge: Serve as the technical bridge between the Managed Platform Services team and adjacent infrastructure teams — including SRE and Compute — who work on the cloud hypervisor and lower-level platform layers. Build enough expertise in their domains to collaborate effectively, represent your team's requirements clearly, and influence decisions that affect the edge agent stack.
- Technical Leadership: Set patterns and frameworks adopted across the team. Mentor senior engineers, contribute to architecture decisions, and help scope quarterly roadmap items with engineering and product leadership.
What You'll Bring to the Team:
- Systems Programming Expertise: Strong proficiency in Python, Go, and/or Shell scripting, with comfort working across languages as the problem demands.
- Linux Kernel Metrics: Experience instrumenting low-level system metrics. Comfort working at the procfs level.
- Kubernetes & Helm: Strong understanding of Kubernetes internals and experience packaging and deploying workloads via Helm charts.
- Operational Mindset: On-call experience on a customer-facing team is required. You proactively identify gaps in monitoring, alerting, and tooling — and close them.
- Systems Programming Expertise: Strong proficiency in Python, Go, and/or Shell scripting, with comfort working across languages as the problem demands.
- Reliability-First Engineering: You design for crash safety, low resource footprint, and graceful degradation. You think about what happens when things go wrong before writing a line of code.
- Scalable Design Thinking: You plan how systems evolve under traffic growth. You consider resiliency, HA, and disaster recovery from the start.
- Staff-Level Impact: You lead cross-domain efforts, own team architecture, and coach multiple engineers across and beyond your team. You identify one-way door decisions, proactively drive solutions without being asked, and introduce frameworks that uplevel the group without requiring your direct involvement. You have a healthy bias to action — you bring solutions, not just problems.
- Communication: Concise, proactive, and anticipates blockers. Keeps stakeholders informed without needing to be asked.
Benefits:
- Competitive compensation and equity packages
- Restricted Stock Units
- Paid time off, paid holidays & leave of absence programs
- 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
- Global travel insurance & emergency assistance
- Daily meals allowance
- Additional perks & programs specific to location
Compensation Range
Compensation will be paid in the range of up to $210,000 - $255,000 + Bonus. Restricted Stock Units are included in all offers. Compensation to be determined by the applicants knowledge, education, and abilities, as well as internal equity and alignment with market data.
Crusoe is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, disability, genetic information, pregnancy, citizenship, marital status, sex/gender, sexual preference/ orientation, gender identity, age, veteran status, national origin, or any other status protected by law or regulation.
Key skills/competency
Staff Software Engineer, Systems Engineering Focus at Crusoe requires expertise in Systems Programming, Python, Go, Shell Scripting, Linux Kernel Metrics, eBPF, Kubernetes, Helm, Operational Mindset, and Reliability-First Engineering.
Skills & topics
- Staff Software Engineer
- Systems Engineering
- Software Development
- Python
- Go
- Shell Scripting
- Linux Kernel
- eBPF
- Kubernetes
- Helm
- Cloud Infrastructure
- AI Compute
- Edge Computing
- Agent Development
- Telemetry
- Monitoring
- Reliability Engineering
- Technical Leadership
How to get hired
- Tailor your resume: Highlight systems programming, Python, Go, Shell, Linux kernel metrics, eBPF, Kubernetes, and Helm experience.
- Showcase operational experience: Detail on-call responsibilities and proactive problem-solving in customer-facing roles.
- Emphasize leadership: Include examples of leading cross-domain efforts and mentoring engineers.
- Prepare for system design: Be ready to discuss scalable design thinking and reliability-first engineering principles.
- Research Crusoe: Understand their mission to accelerate AI compute and energy abundance.
Technical preparation
Behavioral questions
Frequently asked questions
- What is the compensation range for the Staff Software Engineer role at Crusoe?
- The compensation for the Staff Software Engineer position at Crusoe is in the range of up to $210,000 - $255,000, plus a bonus. This also includes Restricted Stock Units. The final compensation will be determined based on the applicant's knowledge, education, abilities, internal equity, and market data.
- What specific systems programming languages are preferred for the Staff Software Engineer position at Crusoe?
- Crusoe is seeking candidates with strong proficiency in Python, Go, and/or Shell scripting for this Staff Software Engineer role. They also value comfort working across multiple languages as the problem demands.
- What level of experience is expected for a Staff Software Engineer at Crusoe?
- As a Staff Software Engineer at Crusoe, you are expected to have staff-level impact. This includes leading cross-domain efforts, owning team architecture, coaching multiple engineers, proactively driving solutions, and introducing frameworks that uplevel the group.
- What does 'Edge & Agents domain' mean in the context of the Staff Software Engineer role at Crusoe?
- The 'Edge & Agents domain' refers to the software that runs directly on customer infrastructure. For the Staff Software Engineer role at Crusoe, this involves designing, building, and scaling these mission-critical agent codes, which are essential for customer production incidents.
- What are the key benefits offered to employees at Crusoe?
- Crusoe offers a comprehensive benefits package, including competitive compensation and equity, Restricted Stock Units, health, dental, and vision insurance, paid time off, parental leave, professional development opportunities, mental health support, and a 401(k) with company match.
- How does Crusoe approach AI infrastructure and power?
- Crusoe is an energy-first, vertically integrated AI infrastructure company. They focus on accelerating the abundance of energy and intelligence by powering AI workloads with an energy-efficient approach, addressing the bottleneck of power for AI compute.
- Is there an on-call requirement for the Staff Software Engineer position at Crusoe?
- Yes, on-call experience on a customer-facing team is required for the Staff Software Engineer role at Crusoe. This indicates a need for individuals who can proactively identify and address issues in monitoring, alerting, and tooling.
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