{"id":67435,"url":"https://alion.io/job/cake-staff-software-engineer-platform","title":"Staff Software Engineer, Platform","company":{"id":23405,"name":"Cake","domain":"cake.ai","url":"https://alion.io/company/cake-ai","size_band":null,"is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Greenhouse","truth_index":null},"role":"Backend","role_family":"Backend","seniority":"staff","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"remote","remote_scope":"stated_countries","remote_scope_basis":"inferred_payroll_markers","remote_working_hours":{"label":"EST","utc_offset_min":-5,"utc_offset_max":-5},"hiring_geo_confidence":"inferred","locations":[],"countries":[],"hiring_countries":["US"],"hiring_countries_total":1,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":148000,"max_usd":286000,"period":"year","method":"global_role_seniority_cell","sample_n":2286},"experience_years_min":10,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"AWS","optional":false},{"name":"Azure","optional":false},{"name":"CI/CD","optional":false},{"name":"GCP","optional":false},{"name":"Go","optional":false},{"name":"Istio","optional":false},{"name":"Kubernetes","optional":false},{"name":"Pulumi","optional":false},{"name":"Terraform","optional":false},{"name":"TypeScript","optional":false},{"name":"Crossplane","optional":true},{"name":"Edge AI","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-07-08T23:02:57Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-07-08","last_verified_at":"2026-10-20T20:31:30Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":104,"trust":{"level":"stale","repost_count":0,"flags":["stale"],"days_open":103},"description":"Location: Remote, collaboration primarily during EST hours\nAbout the company\nCake is on a mission to make cutting-edge AI accessible to enterprise teams.\nEnterprises want to move faster with AI, but are constrained by infrastructure complexity, high operating costs, and the governance required to run AI systems safely at scale. Cake removes those barriers, enabling teams to deploy and operate AI/ML platforms 10x faster and 10x cheaper than traditional approaches-without sacrificing reliability or control. Cake runs inside the customer’s own VPC, giving enterprises full ownership of their data, security, and operations.\nCake solves the full infrastructure problem across 4 layers: compute infrastructure management, open-source ML components, common integrations, and pre-built project components. Built-in security, monitoring, and governance ensure clean ownership, enforce guardrails, and provide a dependable path from experimentation to production at scale. \nBacked by top investors, Cake is seeing strong adoption and is positioned for rapid growth in the next 12 months. Our culture emphasizes ownership, clear communication, and collaboration, with a high bar for operational excellence and production-ready systems. \nWhat you’ll do\nAs a Staff Software Engineer, you will play a critical leadership role in building and operating the infrastructure that powers Cake’s AI platform. This is a high-ownership role for an engineer who thrives at the intersection of distributed systems, cloud infrastructure, and developer experience.\nYou’ll design and operate the ML platform foundations that both internal teams and customers rely on, owning systems end-to-end from architecture to production. You’ll work closely with customers to translate real-world ML use cases into reliable, scalable platform capabilities.\nThis role is ideal for someone who wants to be a technical owner, not just an implementer, someone who cares deeply about system quality, operational excellence, and clear communication.\nYou will:\nBuild Enterprise-Scale Infrastructure\nLeverage infrastructure-as-code to manage complex cloud environments supporting critical ML and AI initiatives.\nDesign Kubernetes-native systems, including controllers/operators where appropriate.\nImprove platform networking, security, and observability\n Sustain Platform Health and Performance\nOwn critical systems in production, including reliability, scalability, security, and cost efficiency.\nIdentify and proactively address technical debt, operational risk, and platform bottlenecks.\n“Learn by doing” - Quickly ramp up to a complex tech stack (Terraform, Kubernetes, Istio, Crossplane, Go, TypeScript)\nEnable Teams and Customers to Move Faster \nCreate abstractions and tooling that make it easier for teams and customers to deploy, run, and scale AI/ML workloads. \nCollaborate directly with customers to understand their ML infrastructure challenges and translate them into platform improvements.\nBalance speed and rigor-shipping quickly while maintaining a high bar for quality and safety.\nLead Through Influence \nAct as a technical leader and mentor across the engineering organization.\nWrite clear documentation and design proposals that align stakeholders and drive decisions.\nPartner closely with product and leadership to shape platform direction and priorities.\nRequirements\nCore Experience \n10+ years of engineering experience, with significant time spent on infrastructure, platform, or distributed systems.\nDeep hands-on experience with Kubernetes in production environments.\nStrong cloud experience across AWS, GCP, and/or Azure.\nProven track record of building and operating secure, scalable AI/MLOps platforms.\n Technical Strength\nDeep understanding of infrastructure-as-code (e.g., Terraform, Pulumi, CDK).\nStrong programming skills in at least one backend language (Go preferred; TypeScript also welcome).\nExperience diagnosing and debugging complex production issues.\nFamiliarity with modern CI/CD, test-driven development, and DevSecOps practices.\nBonus: experience building Kubernetes operators and/or working with service meshes (e.g., Istio).\nOwnership & Communication \nComfortable owning large, ambiguous problems from inception to production.\nExcellent communicator, able to clearly explain complex systems to both technical and non-technical audiences.\nExperience working directly with customers and incorporating feedback into technical decisions.\nAbility to operate autonomously while keeping stakeholders informed and aligned.\nMindset \nCustomer-first and product-oriented.\nCurious, adaptable, and eager to learn new systems and domains.\nCollaborative, respectful, and willing to lean into hard conversations.\nEnergized by fast-paced environments and meaningful responsibility.\nWhy Join Cake\nHigh impact, high ownership: You’ll own foundational systems that directly power customer success.\nSmall, senior team: Your work won’t get lost-you’ll shape the platform and engineering culture.\nReal customers, real problems: You’ll build systems used in production by growing companies.\nAutonomy and trust: We hire experienced engineers and give them room to operate.\nBenefits\nCompetitive cash compensation alongside above-market equity upside\nTop-tier fully covered medical, dental, and vision insurance\nLife insurance\n401k program\nAdditional Perks\nUnlimited PTO\nMonthly half day\nCiti Bike membership\nMonthly wellness stipend\nOffice equipment stipend, including reimbursement for approved disability-related accommodations\nInvestment in employee learning and growth opportunities\nCake is committed to providing equal employment opportunities to all employees and job seekers regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, marital status, disability, veteran status, or any other legally protected category. As an equal opportunities employer, we value diversity and its positive impact on our culture. \nCake also complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). We are dedicated to working with and providing reasonable accommodation to job applicants with physical or mental disabilities. If you require accommodation, please email us at  and we will promptly address your request.","description_format":"text","description_chars":6258,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":10,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["401k plan","Equity","Growth opportunities","Life insurance","Unlimited PTO","Vision insurance"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Cloud Platforms (IaaS & PaaS)","AI Development Tools"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-07-08T23:02:57Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":10,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.367,"p_room":0.28,"age_days":103,"expected_fill_days":26,"reasons":["conf:2","win:tail","crowd:"],"computed_at":"2026-10-20T05:45:00Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/cake-staff-software-engineer-platform","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/cake-staff-software-engineer-platform.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-21T00:19:47Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":491,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-22T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":23405},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=23405"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fcake-staff-software-engineer-platform"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fcake-staff-software-engineer-platform"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fcake-staff-software-engineer-platform"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/cake-staff-software-engineer-platform\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fcake-staff-software-engineer-platform"}]}