Principal Core Infrastructure Engineer

As a Core Infrastructure Engineer, you will design, build, and optimize the software and systems that power OCI AI compute infrastructure, including the GPU control plane and GPU data plane. You will combine software development and systems expertise to improve how GPU and bare metal resources are tested, provisioned, and operated. You will work with engineering, operations, and product teams to solve infrastructure problems, improve workload performance, and deliver a reliable customer experience.

Responsibilities

Key Responsibilities

• Design and develop scalable infrastructure services and features for the GPU control plane, GPU data plane, and bare metal systems supporting customer AI workloads.

• Build and improve automation for testing, provisioning, and validating GPU and bare metal compute resources to support reliable customer delivery.

• Develop modular, reusable infrastructure components with clear interfaces, security and compliance controls, diagnostics, telemetry, and production monitoring.

• Apply system design and distributed systems principles to resolve infrastructure bottlenecks and improve scalability, reliability, and workload performance.

• Collaborate with development, operations, and product management teams to translate requirements into practical infrastructure and orchestration solutions.

• Define benchmarks and automate performance and reliability measurements across customer workloads and the underlying infrastructure stack.

• Provide technical guidance on ambiguous problems, mentor junior developers, and strengthen design reviews, coding standards, code reviews, unit testing, and integration testing.

• Provide operational support and drive continuous improvements to enable GPU delivery to customers at scale.

• Collaborate across geographies to deliver features, bug fixes, and operational enhancements.

• Take end-to-end ownership and accountability for IDC-owned scope, including feature development and program delivery.

Qualifications & Skills

Mandatory

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

• 8+ years of software development experience using one or more languages such as Java, Go, C, C++, C#, or Rust.

• At least 3 years of experience designing and developing large-scale infrastructure, distributed systems, and services.

• At least 1 year of experience providing technical leadership and bringing clarity to cross-functional projects while collaborating with stakeholders.

• Strong software engineering and systems fundamentals, including system design, distributed systems concepts, and systematic troubleshooting across software and infrastructure.

• Clear communication, ownership of outcomes, and the ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced environment.

• Hands-on software development experience in Java or Go; these are the preferred languages for the team.

• Experience combining GPU infrastructure knowledge with software development, particularly in testing, provisioning, or operating GPU systems.

• Experience developing software for bare metal systems or cloud infrastructure, providing a relevant foundation for GPU infrastructure work.

• Cloud native engineering experience, including Docker, Kubernetes, or related containerization and orchestration technologies.

• Experience scheduling high-performance workloads using Kubernetes or Slurm.

• Experience building or managing cloud infrastructure at very large scale, including environments with hundreds of thousands of servers.

Self-Assessment Questions

• Do I meet the required software development experience, and can I explain software I have built and maintained in a relevant programming language?

• Can I describe at least 3 years of work designing or developing large-scale infrastructure, distributed systems, or services, including key design tradeoffs?

• Can I demonstrate how I used both software and systems knowledge to diagnose an infrastructure problem and improve reliability or performance?

• Can I share examples from at least 1 year of providing technical direction and resolving ambiguity while working with cross-functional stakeholders?

• Can I explain how I take ownership of delivery, communicate technical decisions clearly, and manage competing priorities?