Staff Systems Engineer
Blacksmith · New York City
About this role
## About Blacksmith Blacksmith builds infrastructure to run CI workloads **faster and cheaper**. Our first product helps companies run GitHub Actions substantially faster by operating our own **global fleet of bare-metal machines** instead of renting generic cloud VMs. - Orchestrate **tens of millions of Firecracker VMs** each week - CI for **7,000+ companies** and **tens of millions in ARR** - Operate **thousands of bare-metal machines** across multiple regions - Regularly schedule **100k+ vCPUs concurrently** - Manage a **petabyte-scale Ceph cluster** - Raised **$58.5M** (Seed to Series B) led by **Google Ventures (GV)** & **Peak XV Partners** We’re extending our CI infrastructure into a broader platform, including **agent sandboxes at scale** and building our own **background coding agent**. --- ## Staff Systems Engineer (Staff Engineer) We’re looking for a **Staff Engineer** to help set the technical direction for our core infrastructure—critical to the Blacksmith product. This is an **organization-level** role: you’ll own architecture, solve complex systems problems, and drive initiatives that shape how Blacksmith grows, performs, and remains reliable. You’ll be a key technical authority and a **force multiplier**, raising engineering standards, mentoring senior talent, and owning production outcomes. ### What you’ll be doing - Own and drive the architectural direction for critical infrastructure platforms - Translate business/product strategy into long-term technical roadmaps and execution plans - Be accountable for production outcomes: **reliability, performance, and operational excellence** - Mentor senior engineers and act as a force multiplier - Operate effectively in ambiguous problem spaces where both the problem and solution must be defined ### You’re a good fit if you have - Deep familiarity with virtualization technologies such as **Firecracker, QEMU, or Cloud Hypervisor**, including tradeoffs - Experience with **distributed storage systems** (e.g., **Ceph**) and strong low-level file system performance, I/O tuning, and storage reliability at scale - Comfort working at the **kernel and filesystem level**, including experience with **eBPF, cgroups, namespaces**, or similar Linux primitives - A track record of leading through influence and shaping technical direction while operating as an individual contributor - Strong communication skills—able to explain complex systems concepts to engineers, leadership, and non-technical stakeholders --- ## Compensation & Benefits - Medical, Vision, and Dental insurance - Competitive base + equity - 401K match - Unlimited PTO - Annual offsite - Early-exercise stock options - **12 weeks fully paid parental leave (US)**
Listing freshness
CronJobs last confirmed this listing 1h ago. If its source stops confirming the opening for seven days, this page is removed from active inventory.