---
title: 'C++ Software Engineer at Vast.ai'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/c-software-engineer-vast-ai-los-angeles-453z02fghphz'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-10-15'
---

# C++ Software Engineer at Vast.ai

- **Company:** Vast.ai
- **Location:** Los Angeles, CA
- **Compensation:** $155k–$285k
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-07-03
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-15
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/vastai/8e4aad45-d579-417a-b473-a343527766e3

## Job description

## About Us

[Vast.ai](http://Vast.ai)’s cloud powers AI projects and businesses all over the world. We are democratizing and decentralizing AI computing—reshaping our future for the benefit of humanity. We are a growing and highly motivated team dedicated to an ambitious technical plan. Our structure is flat, our ambitions are out‑sized, and leadership is earned by shipping excellence. We seek engineers with strong intrinsic drive, a true passion for advancing the state of the art, and a mix of architecture, coding, and communication skills. LOCATION: On-site at our office in San Francisco or Westwood, Los Angeles.

## About the Role

As a Systems Software Engineer, you will work on key performance critical systems such as the daemon which orchestrates every host in our fleet. You will improve the performance, reliability and capability of our infrastructure and containerization technologies including monitoring and telemetry.

- Full-time
- On-site at either our SF or LA offices

Tech Stack C, C++, Python, Linux Ideal Experience

- Programming: Strong programming skills in at least one language, ideally C++
- Linux and Virtualization: Extensive knowledge of Linux kernel internals, containerization technologies, and virtualization
- Isolation Techniques: Deep understanding of workload and network isolation techniques in multi-tenant environments
- Cloud Security: Experience in securing and hardening cloud infrastructure, particularly in environments with untrusted workloads
- Multi-tenant Security: Strong background in workload and network isolation, network security, and cloud-native security practices
- GPU Security: Experience with GPU programming and an understanding of GPU-specific security concerns.

## Key Responsibilities

- Expand and extend our GPU cloud daemon
- Design and deploy market-based resource management systems
- Harden code and infrastructure to meet zero‑trust standards
- Benchmark, profile, and eliminate bottlenecks across hypervisor, container, and network layers

Interview Process After submitting your application, our technical team reviews your credentials. If selected, you'll proceed through the following stages:

- 15 min - Initial screening (virtual)
- 45 min - Quick dive into Vast, work history (virtual)
- 45 min - Systems and architectures (virtual)
- 1 hour - LLM-assisted coding assessment (virtual)
- 2 hours - Meet and greet with coding assessment (on-site)

Our goal is to complete the interview process in two weeks.

## Benefits

- Comprehensive health, dental, vision, and life insurance
- 401(k) with company match
- Meaningful early-stage equity
- Onsite meals, snacks, and close collaboration with founders/tech leaders
- Ambitious, fast-paced startup culture where initiative is rewarded

## About Vast.ai

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Vast.ai operates a decentralized GPU marketplace that enables developers and AI agents to provision and manage compute power across a global network of hardware, offering a cost-effective alternative to hyperscaler clouds.
- **Entity Type**: Private (raised $30M in funding)
- **Headquarters**: Los Angeles, CA (1100 Glendon Ave, STE 1840) and San Francisco, CA (100 1st Street, STE 2250)
- **Founded**: 2016 (incorporated June 28, 2016)
- **Founders**: Jake Cannell (CEO) and Christian Horne

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Cloud infrastructure / GPU compute / AI infrastructure
- **Target customers**: AI researchers, ML engineers, AI agent developers, enterprises needing GPU compute for training and inference
- **Mission**: "To organize, optimize, and orient the world's computation."
- **Vision**: "To make life substrate-independent through Vast Artificial Intelligence."

## Products & Services
- **GPU Cloud**: On-demand instances across 20,000+ GPUs in 40+ data centers. Deploy via CLI, SDK, Python API. Per-second billing. Real-time pricing set by supply and demand. [vast.ai](https://vast.ai/)
- **Serverless Inference**: Deploy models as endpoints with automatic GPU optimization, auto-scaling to zero, pay-per-compute-time. [vast.ai](https://vast.ai/)
- **GPU Clusters**: Dedicated multi-node clusters with InfiniBand networking for large-scale training. [vast.ai](https://vast.ai/)
- **API & SDK**: REST API, Python SDK, CLI for programmatic compute provisioning. Agent-native interface for autonomous compute procurement. [vast.ai](https://vast.ai/)

## Market Standing
- **Valuation**: Not publicly available
- **Key Metric**: Total funding $30M (as of 2026, per jobsbyculture.com) [jobsbyculture.com](https://jobsbyculture.com/blog/working-at-vast-2026)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Not disclosed in available sources
- **Growth Signals**:
  - 310% year-over-year growth (2024–2025)
  - 20,000+ GPUs, 350+ hosts, 700K+ transactions/month
  - SOC 2 Type I certification achieved in 2024
  - Enterprise and Secure Cloud offerings launched; customers include professional data center partners
  - Headcount grew from fully distributed team to 40+ employees across two offices (LA & SF) [vast.ai/about](https://vast.ai/about)
  - Conflicting reports: jobsbyculture.com cites ~30 employees, while vast.ai/about states "40+ employees"

## Competitive Advantages
- **Decentralized marketplace model**: Taps into underutilized GPU hardware (gaming rigs, mining farms, research labs, small data centers) to offer compute at 3–5x cheaper than AWS, no contracts required.
- **Agent-ready infrastructure**: The same API used by developers is designed for AI agents to autonomously procure and optimize compute – a moat for the upcoming agentic economy.
- **Real-time, transparent pricing**: Prices set by supply and demand, programmatically queryable via API. No hidden costs or enterprise sales friction.
- **Heterogeneous hardware support**: 68+ GPU types across 40+ data centers, enabling users to compare and switch between hardware types easily.
- **SOC 2 certified**: Security and compliance for enterprise workloads.

## Strategic Focus
- **Agentic compute**: Building an "infrastructure layer where AI agents design, procure, and optimize their own compute" [vast.ai](https://vast.ai/)
- **Enterprise expansion**: Growing Secure Cloud (certified data centers) and dedicated cluster products for professional customers.
- **Scaling the network**: Increasing GPU count, host partnerships, and geographic diversity while maintaining real-time pricing and low latency.
- **Open infrastructure**: Keeping compute distributed and independent, countering hyperscaler concentration.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: "High level of rigor, precision, and professionalism" – employees are stakeholders who own the impact of their work. Fast-paced startup environment where initiative is rewarded. [vast.ai/about](https://vast.ai/about)
- **Work location**: On-site in Los Angeles (Westwood) or San Francisco (SOMA). Not remote – all current openings require on-site presence.
- **Perks**: Comprehensive health/dental/vision insurance, 401(k) with company match, meaningful early-stage equity, onsite meals and snacks, close collaboration with founders and tech leaders. [vast.ai/jobs](https://vast.ai/jobs)
- **Interview process**: Screened by technical team; stages include a 15-min screening, 45-min deep dive, 1-hour LLM-assisted coding assessment, and 2-hour on-site meet-and-greet. Aim to complete in about one week. [vast.ai/jobs](https://vast.ai/jobs)
- **Salary ranges**: For roles like Senior Infrastructure Engineer and GPU Systems Engineer, posted salary $120K–$180K (may vary by role). [vast.ai/jobs](https://vast.ai/jobs)
- **Engineering culture**: Reports directly to CEO/founder Jake Cannell, a prolific writer on AI and compute scaling theory. Emphasis on systems engineering, GPU optimization, and cutting-edge research.

## Sources
1. [vast.ai/about](https://vast.ai/about)
2. [vast.ai](https://vast.ai/)
3. [vast.ai/jobs](https://vast.ai/jobs)
4. [jobsbyculture.com](https://jobsbyculture.com/blog/working-at-vast-2026)
5. [vast.ai/jobs/apply/systems-gpu-research-engineer](https://vast.ai/jobs/apply/systems-gpu-research-engineer)

## Other roles at Vast.ai

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- [Head of Sales](https://feeny.ai/job/head-of-sales-vast-ai-los-angeles-yrkth8v89kkh) — Los Angeles, CA
- [Developer Relations Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/developer-relations-engineer-vast-ai-san-francisco-19dx882ce5x1) — San Francisco, CA
- [Controller](https://feeny.ai/job/controller-vast-ai-los-angeles-0d4jvgnj6v48) — Los Angeles, CA
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