Senior HPC Operations Engineer
Content + Source + Freshness • 14 Dec 2025 • 95% confidence
Offer value
This senior role is significantly valuable due to its high salary, critical engineering tasks in AI, and mentorship opportunities.
- Competitive salary: $207,000 - $401,000/year based on experience.
- High-impact work in AI and HPC environments.
- Mentorship and leadership opportunities available.
- Extensive experience required (10 years+).
Pros
- Attractive salary range ($207,000 - $401,000/year) commensurate with experience.
- Impactful work in the growing field of AI technology.
- Opportunity to mentor and lead junior engineers.
Cons
- Requires extensive experience (10+ years) which limits candidate pool.
- High-pressure environment and potential travel requirements.
- Complex role with multiple responsibilities may lead to a challenging work-life balance.
Who it's for
Senior / Lead • Hybrid with on-site requirements
Good fit
- Experienced HPC engineers with a solid grasp of AI.
- Leaders eager to mentor junior team members.
- Candidates looking to work on innovative computing challenges.
Not recommended for
- New or entry-level engineers without HPC knowledge.
- Individuals wanting strictly remote work.
- Candidates not interested in mentoring or leading responsibility.
Motivation fit
Key skills
About the job
Location
San Francisco Office, San Jose Office, Seattle, WA
Employment Type
Full time
Location Type
Hybrid
Department
Engineering
Compensation
- San Francisco/San JoseSan Francisco/San Jose $230K – $401K
- SeattleSeattle $207K – $361K
Lambda, The Superintelligence Cloud, builds Gigawatt-scale AI Factories for Training and Inference. Lambda’s mission is to make compute as ubiquitous as electricity and give every person access to artificial intelligence. One person, one GPU.
If you'd like to build the world's best deep learning cloud, join us.
*Note: This position requires presence in our San Francisco/San Jose or Seattle office location 4 days per week; Lambda’s designated work from home day is currently Tuesday.
Engineering at Lambda is responsible for building and scaling our cloud offering. Our scope includes the Lambda website, cloud APIs and systems as well as internal tooling for system deployment, management and maintenance.
What You’ll Do
Remotely deploy and configure large-scale HPC clusters for AI workloads (up to many thousands of nodes)
Remotely install and configure operating systems, firmware, software, and networking on HPC clusters both manually and using automation tools
Troubleshoot and resolve HPC cluster issues working closely with physical deployment teams on-site
Provide clear and detailed requirements back to other engineering teams on gaps and improvement areas, specifically in the areas of simplification, stability, and operational efficiency
Contribute to the creation of and maintenance of Standard Operating Procedures
Provide regular and well-communicated updates to project leads throughout each deployment
Mentor and assist less experienced team members
Stay up-to-date on the latest HPC/AI technologies and best practices
You
Are a deeply experienced HPC engineer comfortable with logical provisioning of a cluster
Have a strong understanding of HPC/AI architecture, operating systems, firmware, software, and networking
10+ years of experience in deploying and configuring HPC clusters for AI workloads
Have an innate attention to detail
Have experience with Bright Cluster Manager or similar cluster management tools
-
Are in expert in configuring and troubleshooting:
SFP+ fiber, Infiniband (IB), and 100 GbE network fabrics
Ethernet, switching, power infrastructure, GPU direct, RDMA, NCCL, Horovod environments
Linux based compute nodes, firmware updates, driver installation
SLURM, Kubernetes, or other job scheduling systems
Work well under deadlines and structured project plans also knowing when and how to ask for changes to project timelines
Have excellent problem solving and troubleshooting skills
Have flexibility to travel to our North American data centers as on-site needs arise or as part of training exercises
Are able to work independently and as part of a team
Are comfortable mentoring and supporting junior HPC engineers on cluster deployments
Nice to Have
Experience with machine learning and deep learning frameworks (PyTorch, Tensorflow) and benchmarking tools (DeepSpeed, MLPerf)
Experience with containerization technologies ( Docker, Kubernetes)
Experience working with the technologies that underpin our cloud business ( GPU acceleration, virtualization, and cloud computing)
Keen situational awareness in customer situations, employing diplomacy and tact
Bachelors degree in EE, CS, Physics, Mathematics, or equivalent work experience
Salary Range Information
The annual salary range for this position has been set based on market data and other factors. However, a salary higher or lower than this range may be appropriate for a candidate whose qualifications differ meaningfully from those listed in the job description.
About Lambda
Founded in 2012, ~400 employees (2025) and growing fast
We offer generous cash & equity compensation
Our investors include Andra Capital, SGW, Andrej Karpathy, ARK Invest, Fincadia Advisors, G Squared, In-Q-Tel (IQT), KHK & Partners, NVIDIA, Pegatron, Supermicro, Wistron, Wiwynn, US Innovative Technology, Gradient Ventures, Mercato Partners, SVB, 1517, Crescent Cove.
We are experiencing extremely high demand for our systems, with quarter over quarter, year over year profitability
Our research papers have been accepted into top machine learning and graphics conferences, including NeurIPS, ICCV, SIGGRAPH, and TOG
Health, dental, and vision coverage for you and your dependents
Wellness and Commuter stipends for select roles
401k Plan with 2% company match (USA employees)
Flexible Paid Time Off Plan that we all actually use
A Final Note:
You do not need to match all of the listed expectations to apply for this position. We are committed to building a team with a variety of backgrounds, experiences, and skills.
Equal Opportunity Employer
Lambda is an Equal Opportunity employer. Applicants are considered without regard to race, color, religion, creed, national origin, age, sex, gender, marital status, sexual orientation and identity, genetic information, veteran status, citizenship, or any other factors prohibited by local, state, or federal law.
Compensation Range: $207K - $401K
