---
title: 'Distributed Systems Engineer at Fluidstack'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/distributed-systems-engineer-fluidstack-san-francisco-cfjrjfew1kzg'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-06'
---

# Distributed Systems Engineer at Fluidstack

- **Company:** [Fluidstack](https://feeny.ai/companies/fluidstack)
- **Location:** San Francisco, CA
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-07-05
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-06
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/fluidstack/fdf7e107-e93b-4eff-aa66-713bfe2e1411

## Job description

## ABOUT FLUIDSTACK

We exist to make humanity more free. For most of human history, you farmed or you starved. Technology gave people more time for the things they wanted to do, instead of things they had to do. Powerful AI will be the biggest lever for human choice we've ever built - but only if models are aligned with what humanity actually wants. There are groups building AI who don't share these goals. Whoever deploys frontier compute infrastructure fastest will decide whether AI expands human freedom or shrinks it.

We're singularly focused on delivering 10 to 100s of GWs of compute faster than anyone else, rethinking every layer of the stack. We acquire power, design and build data centers, and operate them - with teams spanning hardware and software. Speed and scale are our key differentiators. Come be a part of building civilization-scale infrastructure for AI.

We hire people who care deeply about this problem space. If that is you, please apply!

## HOW WE OPERATE

- Be a barrel. Full autonomy. Own things end to end, take on scope without being asked, no permission required to operate outside your core role.
- Insane urgency. We drive everything forward as fast as possible.
- Reason from first principles. Challenge every assumption. Zero analogy thinking, no egos, the best idea wins.
- Love of the game. The frontier of AI is the most interesting problem of our time. We put in long hours at high intensity to push the frontier forward.
- Build something that actually matters. If you're going to spend your time, spend it on something that matters to the world.

## THE PRODUCTION ENGINEERING TEAM

Examples of key exciting problems the team is working on

- Make tens of thousands of GPUs legible in real time: build the observability platform that turns raw telemetry into signal, from site-level health down to individual device and link. At this scale, you cannot operate what you cannot see.
- Build the control plane every team at Fluidstack depends on: replace one-off tooling with a stable, versioned API surface that covers unified machine management, actual state inspection, and distributed command execution. One interface for the whole company, not a hundred scripts.
- Make the system's view of itself always match reality: integrate fleet state as a machine-readable source of truth across provisioning, operations, and customer-facing platforms, so every new site and GPU generation lands cleanly from day zero.

## ROLE SCOPE

- Own the observability platform. Build and operate the data pipelines, decoration and correlation engine, and healthcheck framework that make the fleet legible — from site down to device and link. No other team should need to scrape production directly to answer a question.
- Define and build the API surface for infrastructure. Design the contracts between production infrastructure and every tool that touches it. All other teams at Fluidstack use your tooling to manage and operate our hyperscale fleet.
- Build the production control plane. Unified machine management, actual state inspection, distributed command execution — and the Kubernetes-based infrastructure that underpins it all.
- Own fleet state as source of truth. SLOs, site lifecycle state, and integration with internal infrastructure management and customer-facing operations platforms. What the system says about itself should match reality, and you're accountable when it doesn't.
- Land new hardware into the platform cleanly. ZTP, DHCP, DNS, artifacts — every new XPU generation and site integration goes through IaaS before production.

## WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR

The below is a starting point. We always make space for exceptional people, so if you don't fit this role exactly, tell us where you would. https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/fluidstack/05c2e69c-42f9-4fcb-9cf0-a467aaf98f1c

- You treat toil as a bug. If something requires a human to do it twice, you build the thing that makes it not require a human.
- You design APIs that age well. You've felt the pain of a leaky abstraction at scale and you don't repeat it.
- You move toward ambiguity, not away from it. You walk into the fog, build the map, and explain it to everyone else.
- You learn at a steep slope. You reach real competence in an unfamiliar domain fast. We value this over existing expertise.
- You carry a pager without flinching. You run the incident, write the postmortem, fix the systemic cause, and move on.
- You're fluent with AI tooling. LLM APIs, MCP servers, and agentic frameworks, and you drive Claude Code, Cursor, or similar every day.
- You've shipped production services that other teams depend on at scale, and you're comfortable in any language using AI coding tools.
- Bonus: Distributed systems and data pipeline engineering. Time-series observability stacks (Prometheus, Thanos, VictoriaMetrics). API design and versioning at scale. Workflow and orchestration engines (Temporal, Cadence). BMC/Redfish or hardware telemetry. Go, Python, and Postgres.

## SALARY & BENEFITS

- Competitive total compensation package (salary + equity).
- Retirement or pension plan, in line with local norms.
- Health, dental, and vision insurance.
- Generous PTO policy, in line with local norms.

We are committed to pay equity and transparency.

Fluidstack is an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability and protected veterans’ status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Fluidstack will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records pursuant to applicable law.

You will receive a confirmation email once your application has successfully been accepted. If there is an error with your submission and you did not receive a confirmation email, please email careers@fluidstack.io with your resume/CV, the role you've applied for, and the date you submitted your application-- someone from our recruiting team will be in touch.

## About Fluidstack

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Fluidstack builds and operates gigawatt-scale AI data centers and provides fully managed GPU cloud clusters for frontier AI labs, governments, and enterprises.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series A stage; total funding of $11.0B)
- **Headquarters**: New York, New York, United States
- **Founded**: 2017
- **Founders**: Gary Wu (CEO)

## Core Business
- **Primary Industry**: AI Infrastructure / Data Center Construction & Operations / Cloud Computing
- **Target Customers**: Leading AI labs (e.g., Anthropic, poolside), governments, and large enterprises requiring massive-scale compute for training and inference.
- **Mission Statement**: "We exist to make humanity more free... Powerful AI will be the biggest lever for human choice we've ever built — but only if models are aligned with that objective."

## Products & Services
- **Fully Managed GPU Clusters**: Multi-thousand GPU clusters delivered with zero setup, fully managed (no node touching by the customer), with 15-minute engineering response SLAs and built-in monitoring and remediation. Purpose-built for AI workloads.
- **Custom Data Centers**: Design, build, and operate greenfield data centers from the ground up, delivering gigawatts of compute in 6 months versus the industry standard of 18-24 months. Includes power acquisition, site selection, and civil/electrical/mechanical engineering.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed.
- **Total Funding**: $11.0 billion (across 14 rounds). Key rounds include a $750M venture round (March 2026) and a $200M Series A led by Cacti (February 2025).
- **Key Metric**: $11.0B in total funding; leading the deployment of Anthropic’s $50B compute buildout, one of the largest infrastructure projects in US history.
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Cacti (lead investor), Anthropic (customer/partner), poolside (customer).
- **Growth Signals**: Headcount grew 516.7% year-over-year to 143 employees. Currently has 270 active job postings. Expanding rapidly across the US (NY, SF, Austin, Seattle, Buffalo) and internationally (UK, France, Sweden, Nigeria, Switzerland).

## Competitive Advantages
- **Speed of Deployment**: Can deliver gigawatts of compute in 6 months vs. the industry’s 18-24 months, giving them a massive first-mover advantage in a capital-constrained market.
- **Full-Stack Control**: They acquire power, design and build data centers, and operate them — owning the entire hardware and software stack from power generation to GPU orchestration.
- **Tier-1 Customer Base**: Trusted by the world’s most ambitious AI labs (Anthropic, poolside), providing both credibility and a feedback loop for product improvement.
- **Purpose-Built Platform**: Not general-purpose cloud; their platform is specifically optimized for AI researchers, removing all infrastructure friction (no K8s configs, no bare metal management).

## Strategic Focus
- **Massive Scale Buildout**: Deploying Anthropic’s $50B data center project across New York and Texas, representing one of the largest infrastructure projects in US history.
- **Global Expansion**: Expanding operations across 8 countries and multiple US states, with a heavy focus on data center site acquisition, power generation, and modular design.
- **Talent Acquisition**: Aggressively hiring across engineering, construction, operations, security, and project management roles to support hypergrowth.

## Why Work Here
- **Mission-Driven Work**: Directly building the physical infrastructure for the next generation of AI — a rare opportunity to work on frontier technology with tangible, large-scale impact.
- **Rapid Growth Trajectory**: 516.7% headcount growth YoY with 270 open positions signals massive opportunity for career acceleration and ownership.
- **Technical Depth**: Work spans hardware (electrical, civil, mechanical engineering for data centers) and software (GPU cluster orchestration, monitoring, infrastructure platform engineering), offering diverse technical challenges.
- **Top-Tier Talent Pool**: Employees come from AWS, Tesla, Crusoe, Palantir, Oracle, and Meta, indicating a high-caliber, ambitious work environment.
- **Work Policy**: Remote-friendly for many roles, with hubs in San Francisco, New York, Austin, Seattle, and Buffalo. Departments span Engineering, Operations, Data Center, Security, and more.
- **Culture**: Emphasis on speed, autonomy, and removing friction — "We build technology to enable delivery of gigawatts of compute in 6 months" — reflecting a bias for action and operational excellence.

## Sources
1. [fluidstack.io](https://www.fluidstack.io/)
2. [fluidstack.io/about-us](https://www.fluidstack.io/about-us/about)
3. [fluidstack.io/jobs](https://fluidstack.io/jobs)
4. [LinkedIn](https://es.linkedin.com/company/fluidstack)
5. [CB Insights](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/fluidstack)

## Other roles at Fluidstack

- [Network Engineer, Connectivity & Strategy](https://feeny.ai/job/network-engineer-connectivity-strategy-fluidstack-new-york-pvgj4bn2enx9) — New York, NY
- [Senior Counsel, Real Estate](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-counsel-real-estate-fluidstack-seattle-0zxga7ycp9ks) — Seattle, WA
- [Counsel, Energy](https://feeny.ai/job/counsel-energy-fluidstack-seattle-w1yf5b4ceyza) — Seattle, WA
- [Infrastructure Delivery Program Lead](https://feeny.ai/job/infrastructure-delivery-program-lead-fluidstack-new-york-hg44stcp9x49) — New York, NY
- [Production Engineer, Network](https://feeny.ai/job/production-engineer-network-fluidstack-san-francisco-0179fcmevvdv) — San Francisco, CA
- [Counsel, Infrastructure](https://feeny.ai/job/counsel-infrastructure-fluidstack-seattle-krhj5xg7fkjm) — Seattle, WA
- [Structured Finance, Lead](https://feeny.ai/job/structured-finance-lead-fluidstack-new-york-fqr7f1jy6v42) — New York, NY
- [Structured Finance, Associate](https://feeny.ai/job/structured-finance-associate-fluidstack-new-york-vajx8731ye3j) — New York, NY
- [Software Engineer, Applied AI](https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineer-applied-ai-fluidstack-san-francisco-027sc2j800an) — San Francisco, CA
- [Software Engineer, Ontology](https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineer-ontology-fluidstack-san-francisco-gtb8akaxr5bg) — San Francisco, CA