{"id":42107,"url":"https://alion.io/job/crusoe-senior-staff-software-engineer-sdn-architecture","title":"Senior Staff Software Engineer, SDN Architecture","company":{"id":48024,"name":"Crusoe","domain":"crusoe.ai","url":"https://alion.io/company/crusoe-ai","size_band":"1001-5000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":84,"open_postings":42,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.643,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":57,"computed_at":"2026-11-10T06:52:35Z"}},"role":"Backend","role_family":"Backend","seniority":"staff","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["San Francisco, United States","Bellevue, United States","Sunnyvale, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":250000,"max":300000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":300000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":8,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":true,"technologies":[{"name":"BGP","optional":false},{"name":"C++","optional":false},{"name":"eBPF","optional":false},{"name":"HPC","optional":false},{"name":"Linux","optional":false},{"name":"Rust","optional":false},{"name":"Cilium","optional":true}],"status":"closed","first_seen_at":"2026-08-04T19:52:57Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-08-04","last_verified_at":"2026-11-03T22:25:35Z","board_verified":false,"closed_at":"2026-11-03T22:25:35Z","days_open":91,"trust":{"level":"not_scored","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":91},"description":"Crusoe is on a mission to accelerate the abundance of energy and intelligence. As the only vertically integrated AI infrastructure company built from the ground up, we own and operate each layer of the stack - from electrons to tokens - to power the world's most ambitious AI workloads. When you join Crusoe, you join a team that is building the future, faster.\nWe're in the midst of the greatest industrial revolution of our time. The demand for AI compute is boundless, and power is a bottleneck. We're solving that - with an energy-first approach that makes AI infrastructure better for the world and faster for the people innovating with AI.\nWe're looking for problem-solving, opportunity-finding teammates with a sense of urgency, who believe in the scale of our ambition and thrive on a path not fully paved - people who want to grow their careers alongside a team of experts across energy, manufacturing, data center construction, and cloud services.\nIf you want to do the most meaningful work of your career, help our customers and partners advance their AI strategies, and be part of a high-performing team that believes in each other, come build with us at Crusoe.\nAbout This Role\nAs a Senior Staff Software Engineer for SDN Architecture, you will be a driving technical force behind the software-defined networking stack that powers Crusoe's AI-first cloud. You will design and build high-performance networking solutions optimized for AI and HPC workloads, working deeply across the Linux kernel, packet processing pipelines, and network virtualization to help deliver the extreme throughput and low latency that massive GPU clusters demand.\nYou will act as a senior technical contributor and a trusted voice in architecture decisions, partnering closely with Principal Engineers and engineering leadership to shape direction while owning significant portions of the roadmap yourself. This role suits a deep-systems engineer who thrives at the intersection of hardware accelerators and software control planes, and who enjoys raising the technical bar of the teams around them. You will collaborate closely with Product, Hardware, and Infrastructure teams to deliver a reliable, scalable networking fabric that aligns with Crusoe's mission to innovate sustainably.\nWhat You'll Be Working On\nSDN Execution & Roadmap Contribution: Contribute to and help refine the technical direction for Software-Defined Networking, translating strategy into concrete plans, milestones, and measurable outcomes for your area of ownership.\n\nArchitecture & Design: Participate in and help lead architecture reviews, author design documents for major SDN components, and provide thorough code reviews for critical services.\n\nKernel & Driver Optimization: Build and optimize Linux kernel modules and high-performance drivers using technologies such as XDP, eBPF, AF_XDP, and DPDK.\n\nFabric Design: Help design and implement network architectures for GPU-to-GPU fabrics, high-speed Ethernet, and specialized AI clusters.\n\nHardware Integration: Implement and tune virtualization features such as SR-IOV, vDPA, and virtio, and help integrate advanced SmartNICs, DPUs, or IPUs into the stack.\n\nPerformance Engineering: Troubleshoot complex production issues and perform deep performance tuning to maximize throughput and minimize latency and improve future designs based on learnings.\n\nTechnology Evaluation: Evaluate emerging SDN and NFV technologies, and contribute to open-source projects where strategically relevant, sharing findings with the broader engineering org.\n\nMentorship: Mentor engineers across the stack, review their designs and code, and help build a culture of engineering excellence.\n\nCross Functional: Partnering with software and operation teams to implement, execute, deploy and manage your architecture designs while incorporating feedback along the way.\n\nWhat You'll Bring to the Team\nHigh-Performance Networking Experience: 8+ years of experience building and operating large-scale networking systems in production, ideally within cloud or hyperscale data center environments.\n\nSystems Programming Skills: Strong SDN and NFV experience coupled with solid systems programming skills in C, C++, Go or Rust.\n\nLinux Internals Knowledge: Strong working knowledge of Linux kernel architecture, memory management, the network stack, and device driver development.\n\nPacket Processing Expertise: Hands-on experience with kernel bypass and high-speed packet processing, including XDP, eBPF, AF_XDP, or DPDK.\n\nAccelerator Familiarity: Familiarity with SmartNICs and accelerators, such as NVIDIA ConnectX-6/7, BlueField-3, or Intel IPUs.\n\nFabric & Virtualization Literacy: Experience with network virtualization and data center fabrics (e.g., Spine-Leaf, BGP, EVPN, VXLAN) and tools like OVS or OVN.\n\nData Plane Debugging: Solid knowledge of SR-IOV and vDPA, with the ability to debug issues across both control and data planes.\n\nCollaborative Influence: A track record of influencing technical decisions through strong written communication and a collaborative, mentoring mindset.\n\nMandatory Education: A Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related analytical field (or equivalent professional experience).\n\nBonus Points\nOpen-Source Contributions: Contributions to projects like OVS, OVN, Cilium, or Multus.\n\nPhysical Networking: Hands on experience deploying and operating physical network devices.\n\nOrchestration Expertise: Experience with network automation or complex orchestration tooling.\n\nAdvanced Systems Experience: Experience building networking stacks for multi-node GPU training at scale.\n\nBenefits:\nCompetitive compensation and equity packages\n\nRestricted Stock Units\n\nPaid time off, paid holidays & leave of absence programs\n\nComprehensive health, dental & vision insurance\n\nEmployer contributions to HSA account\n\nPaid parental leave\n\nPaid life insurance, short-term and long-term disability\n\nProfessional development & tuition reimbursement\n\nMental health & wellness support\n\nCommuter benefits (parking & transit)\n\nCell phone stipend\n\n401(k) Retirement plan with company match up to 4% of salary\n\nVolunteer time off\n\nGlobal travel insurance & emergency assistance\n\nDaily meals allowance\n\nAdditional perks & programs specific to location\n\nCompensation Range\nCompensation will be paid in the range of up to $250,000 to $300,000 + Bonus. Restricted Stock Units are included in all offers. Compensation to be determined by the applicant's knowledge, education, and abilities, as well as internal equity and alignment with market data.\nCrusoe is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, disability, genetic information, pregnancy, citizenship, marital status, sex/gender, sexual preference/ orientation, gender identity, age, veteran status, national origin, or any other status protected by law or regulation.","description_format":"text","description_chars":6912,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":8,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Equity","Life insurance","Parental leave","Professional development","Restricted stock units","Retirement plans","Vision insurance"],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Enterprise Networks","Data Centers & Colocation","AI Compute & Inference"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-08-04T19:52:57Z"},{"event":"close","at":"2026-11-03T22:25:35Z"}],"visa":[{"country":"US","licensed_sponsor":true,"adverts_offering_sponsorship_24m":0,"sanctioned_now":false,"evidence":"H-1B filings in 12 months: 13","filings_12m":13,"filings_prev_12m":0,"green_card_filings_12m":0,"median_offered_wage_usd":237500,"route":null,"cap_exempt":false,"checked_at":"2026-11-09T07:32:21+00:00","sources":["US Department of Labor: LCA disclosure data (H-1B, H-1B1, E-3)"],"filings_for_role_12m":9}],"liveness":null,"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":300000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/crusoe-senior-staff-software-engineer-sdn-architecture","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/crusoe-senior-staff-software-engineer-sdn-architecture.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-10T08:07:10Z","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":18844,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-11T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.1,"usd":0.01,"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":48024},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=48024"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fcrusoe-senior-staff-software-engineer-sdn-architecture"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":2,"usd":0.2},"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%2Fcrusoe-senior-staff-software-engineer-sdn-architecture"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.1,"usd":0.01},"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%2Fcrusoe-senior-staff-software-engineer-sdn-architecture"},{"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/crusoe-senior-staff-software-engineer-sdn-architecture\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fcrusoe-senior-staff-software-engineer-sdn-architecture"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":42107}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"crusoe.ai","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":42107},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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