---
title: 'Systems Engineer I at DigitalOcean'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/systems-engineer-i-digitalocean-seattle-xjtkq9p10bqh'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-08'
---

# Systems Engineer I at DigitalOcean

- **Company:** DigitalOcean
- **Location:** Seattle, WA
- **Posted:** 2026-08-27
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-08
- **Apply:** https://www.digitalocean.com/careers/position/apply/?gh_jid=8162756

## Job description

Dive in and do the best work of your career at DigitalOcean. Journey alongside a strong community of top talent who are relentless in their drive to build the simplest scalable cloud. If you have a growth mindset, naturally like to think big and bold, and are energized by the fast-paced environment of a true industry disruptor, you’ll find your place here.  We value winning together—while learning, having fun, and making a profound difference for the dreamers and builders in the world.

We are working on solving some of the most challenging and interesting technology projects around, on a scale unmatched by most. We want people who are passionate about optimizing and troubleshooting data center hardware at mega-scale so our customers don’t have to worry! Reporting to the Manager of Infra::Machines::Design, you will support sustaining engineering efforts for the hardware infrastructure of the DigitalOcean server fleet.

The ideal candidate will be eager to face new challenges as DigitalOcean continues to scale its data center footprint and infrastructure cloud capacity and explore new technologies and capabilities to bring to our customers, providing top-tier support for our hardware and firmware in the DO fleet.

What You’ll Be Doing:

- Act a member of the Sustaining Engineering team in the Infra::Machines::Design Organization
- Support server hardware, cabling, and networking hardware throughout its operational lifecycle
- Monitor the #machines channel and MACHINES JIRA project for issues and drive them to resolution
- Participate in 24/7 on-call rotation with other members of the team
- Act as Tier 2 escalation for Datacenter Operations (DCOPS) and Cloud Operations (CloudOps) regarding hardware and firmware components
- Develop and maintain standards and practices for DigitalOcean hardware operations
- Work closely with the Qualification team, Firmware team, Fleet Lifecycle Engineering team (FLE), Foresight team, and Infrastructure Services team to resolve issues in tooling, firmware packages, hardware components, and other operational concerns
- Help with development of tooling and associated runbooks to address gaps in operational capabilities around hardware and firmware operations
- Coordinate with Ops teams on monitoring thresholds, failure modes and alerting
- Assist in troubleshooting cause of failures and work to prevent them in the future
- Raise the quality bar in the delivery of our cloud infrastructure by identifying industry best practices and working to adopt them

What We’ll Expect From You:

- Technical Degree (BS Computer Science/Engineering) or equivalent practical experience
- Hands-on experience operating a cloud infrastructure at mid-tier scale or better
- An in-depth understanding of server hardware, firmware, and infrastructure
- Strong knowledge in troubleshooting techniques, Python and BASHExtra points for JTAG debugging / Firmware troubleshooting / Wire sniffing experience
- Clear communication and collaboration across key stakeholders
- An insatiable passion for constant improvement

Compensation Range:

- $83,200.00 - $104,000.00

*This is a hybrid role

JR: 2026-8167

#LI-Hybrid

## Why You’ll Like Working for DigitalOcean

- We innovate with purpose. You’ll be a part of a cutting-edge technology company with an upward trajectory, who are proud to simplify cloud and AI so builders can spend more time creating software that changes the world. As a member of the team, you will be a Shark who thinks big, bold, and scrappy, like an owner with a bias for action and a powerful sense of responsibility for customers, products, employees, and decisions.
- We prioritize career development. At DO, you’ll do the best work of your career. You will work with some of the smartest and most interesting people in the industry. We are a high-performance organization that will always challenge you to think big. Our organizational development team will provide you with resources to ensure you keep growing. We provide employees with reimbursement for relevant conferences, training, and education. All employees have access to LinkedIn Learning's 10,000+ courses to support their continued growth and development.
- We care about your well-being. Regardless of your location, we will provide you with a competitive array of benefits to support you from our Employee Assistance Program to Local Employee Meetups to flexible time off policy, to name a few. While the philosophy around our benefits is the same worldwide, specific benefits may vary based on local regulations and preferences.
- We reward our employees. The salary range for this position is based on market data, relevant years of experience, and skills. You may qualify for a bonus in addition to base salary; bonus amounts are determined based on company and individual performance. We also provide equity compensation to eligible employees, including equity grants upon hire and the option to participate in our Employee Stock Purchase Program.
- DigitalOcean is an equal-opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, ancestry, national origin, caste, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or expression, age, disability, medical condition, pregnancy, genetic makeup, marital status, or military service.

Application Limit: You may apply to a maximum of 3 positions within any 180-day period. This policy promotes better role-candidate matching and encourages thoughtful applications where your qualifications align most strongly.

## About DigitalOcean

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: DigitalOcean provides a simple, scalable cloud platform for developers, startups, and SMBs, and is now building an AI-native cloud with inference and managed agent services.
- **Entity Type**: Public (NYSE: DOCN)
- **Headquarters**: New York, NY, USA
- **Founded**: 2012
- **Founders**: Ben Uretsky, Moisey Uretsky, Jeff Carr, Alec Hartman, Mitch Wainer

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Cloud computing, AI infrastructure
- **Target customers**: Developers (B2B), startups, and small-to-medium businesses (Digital Native Enterprises)
- **Mission**: “Simplify cloud and AI so builders can spend more time creating software that changes the world.” [digitalocean.com/about](https://www.digitalocean.com/about)

## Products & Services
- **Droplet**: Simple, scalable virtual machines for any workload.
- **Managed Kubernetes**: Container orchestration with easy management.
- **App Platform**: Fully managed platform for building, deploying, and scaling apps.
- **Inference Engine**: AI inference service offering over 70 models (open-weight and frontier), with serverless, dedicated, or batch inference and an Inference Router for cost optimization. [digitalocean.com](https://www.digitalocean.com/)
- **Managed Agents**: Production-ready AI agents that run on the same integrated stack as inference and infrastructure, avoiding cross-vendor hops and egress fees.
- **Core Infrastructure**: 20 data centers across 11 regions, air- and liquid-cooled GPU clusters (NVIDIA H100/H200/Blackwell, AMD Instinct MI300X/MI325X/MI350X) with 400G RoCE fabric.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly available in provided sources (public company; check NYSE: DOCN)
- **Key Metric**: Over 640,000 customers globally; more than 1,500 employees (as of early 2026). [digitalocean.com/blog/why-2026-is-the-year-to-join-digitalocean](https://www.digitalocean.com/blog/why-2026-is-the-year-to-join-digitalocean)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: As a public company, its shareholders include institutional investors. No specific partners listed in recent company materials.
- **Growth Signals**: Rapid headcount growth (1,500+ employees), strong customer base expansion (640k+), and a strategic pivot to an “agentic cloud” with new AI products in public preview.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Simplicity**: Known for developer-friendly interfaces and documentation that reduce complexity compared to larger cloud providers.
- **Integrated AI Stack**: Covers five layers (infrastructure, inference, agents, etc.) in one platform, eliminating cross-vendor integration costs and egress fees.
- **Cost-Effectiveness**: Transparent pricing and competitive latency (e.g., 3.9× higher output speed vs. AWS Bedrock, independently benchmarked on DeepSeek V3.2). [digitalocean.com](https://www.digitalocean.com/)
- **Community**: Strong open-source and developer community contributions.

## Strategic Focus
- Building the “comprehensive agentic cloud” – a fully integrated stack for AI-powered applications.
- Expanding inference and managed agent capabilities to attract digital native enterprises.
- Investing in GPU infrastructure (NVIDIA and AMD) and global data center expansion.

## Why Work Here
- **Work Model**: Offers fully remote, hybrid (three days in office), and in-office options depending on role and location. Offices in the US (Austin, Boston, Denver, SF Bay Area, Seattle), India (Hyderabad), and Pakistan (Karachi). [digitalocean.com/careers](https://www.digitalocean.com/careers)
- **Culture**: Values are Fast, Simple, Bold, Proud, Love, Community, and Growth. Emphasis on ownership, bias for action, and thinking big.
- **Compensation**: Competitive base salaries at market midpoint, annual bonus targets, performance equity grants, and an Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP).
- **Benefits**: Generous wellness benefits, flexible PTO, above-average parental leave, health insurance (medical, dental, vision, mental health), 401(k) with safe harbor match, life insurance, and income protection.
- **Professional Development**: Unlimited access to LinkedIn Learning, education reimbursement for courses/certifications, book program, conference attendance, and internal learning opportunities.
- **Interview Process**: Human resume review (no bots), recruiter video call, hiring manager interview, then team interviews. Accommodations available. [digitalocean.com/careers](https://www.digitalocean.com/careers)
- **Perks**: Monthly internet/phone stipend, wellness stipend, home office setup allowance, milestone and anniversary gift programs, employee giving match via Groundswell.

## Sources
1. [DigitalOcean Careers Page](https://www.digitalocean.com/careers)
2. [DigitalOcean About Page](https://www.digitalocean.com/about)
3. [DigitalOcean Product (AI-Native Cloud)](https://www.digitalocean.com/)
4. [Why 2026 is the Year to Join DigitalOcean](https://www.digitalocean.com/blog/why-2026-is-the-year-to-join-digitalocean)
5. [DigitalOcean Open Roles](https://www.digitalocean.com/careers/open-roles)

## Other roles at DigitalOcean

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