Skiffra is building the intelligence layer for the physical world. We translate complex, real-world environments into clear, actionable data.
While most AI companies focus on digital industries, we design AI native orchestration systems for the sectors that extract, move, and build ecosystems around us. We turn messy, high stakes operations into intelligent, adaptive workflows that improve decisions in real time.
Our first proving ground is mining and natural resources, but the platform is modular by design and built to scale into any industry where decisions are expensive and the consequences are real.
What You'll Do
Own our AWS infrastructure and cloud architecture, ensuring it's secure, scalable, and highly available
Build and maintain Kubernetes clusters and the tooling required to deploy and operate production services
Develop Infrastructure as Code using Terraform, automating everything possible.
Create internal developer tooling that makes it easy for engineers to build, test, and deploy safely
Design and improve CI/CD pipelines that enable rapid, reliable releases.
Partner with backend, data, and AI engineers to build infrastructure that supports distributed systems and production AI workloads
Own observability across the platform, including monitoring, logging, alerting, and incident response
Continuously improve security, reliability, performance, and cost efficiency across our infrastructure
Help establish engineering best practices around infrastructure, deployments, and operational excellence
Play a key role in shaping both our technical roadmap and engineering culture as one of our earliest hires
What We're Looking For
8+ years of experience building and operating cloud infrastructure in production environments
Strong experience with AWS, Kubernetes, and Terraform
Excellent Python skills for automation, tooling, and infrastructure development.
Experience managing PostgreSQL and cloud-native databases
Strong understanding of containers, networking, Linux, security, and distributed systems.
Experience designing scalable, highly available production infrastructure.
Comfortable debugging complex production issues and owning systems from design through operation
Excellent communication skills and the ability to collaborate across engineering disciplines
Experience at an early-stage startup where you've built infrastructure from the ground up is highly preferred
Comfortable operating across AWS and Azure (GCP a plus); experience with per-client / multi-cloud deployment topologies.
Experience operating data pipelines and lakehouse infra, object-store table formats (Iceberg), a catalog (Glue/Nessie), an orchestrator (Dagster/Airflow/Temporal), dbt in CI, and query engines (DuckDB/Trino).
MLOps/LLMOps, GPU infrastructure, inference serving, LLM observability/evals, cost controls for AI workloads
multi-tenant isolation, data-residency-aware deployments, and SOC 2 / ISO 27001 / GDPR experience
Experience with observability tooling such as Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry, Datadog, or CloudWatch
Familiarity with DynamoDB, event-driven architectures, and distributed messaging systems
Experience improving developer experience through platform engineering and internal tooling
Previous experience as a founding engineer or technical lead
We value speed, clarity, and technical rigor. We favor simple systems over clever ones, prototypes over over-planning, and ownership over handoffs. You’ll work directly with founders and ship things that matter quickly.
Location & Work ModelThis is a hybrid role with regular in-person collaboration in Los Angeles or the San Francisco Bay Area. We are not a remote-only company.
Work AuthorizationCandidates must be authorized to work in the United States. We are not able to offer visa sponsorship for this role.
Benefits & EligibilityThis position is eligible for Skiffra’s standard benefits, including health insurance and retirement plans, and may also qualify for participation in the Company’s bonus and incentive programs.
Equal OpportunitySkiffra is an equal opportunity employer. We value diversity and do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, national origin, disability, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic.
Skills Required
- 8+ years building and operating cloud infrastructure in production environments
- Strong experience with AWS
- Strong experience with Kubernetes
- Strong experience with Terraform
- Excellent Python skills for automation, tooling, and infrastructure development
- Experience managing PostgreSQL and cloud-native databases
- Strong understanding of containers, networking, Linux, security, and distributed systems
- Experience designing scalable, highly available production infrastructure
- Comfortable debugging complex production issues and owning systems from design through operation
- Excellent communication skills and the ability to collaborate across engineering disciplines
- Comfortable operating across AWS and Azure (GCP a plus); experience with per-client / multi-cloud deployment topologies
- Experience operating data pipelines and lakehouse infra, object-store table formats (Iceberg), a catalog (Glue/Nessie), an orchestrator (Dagster/Airflow/Temporal), dbt in CI, and query engines (DuckDB/Trino)
- MLOps/LLMOps, GPU infrastructure, inference serving, LLM observability/evals, and cost controls for AI workloads
- Multi-tenant isolation, data-residency-aware deployments, and SOC 2 / ISO 27001 / GDPR experience
- Experience at an early-stage startup where you've built infrastructure from the ground up
- Experience with observability tooling such as Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry, Datadog, or CloudWatch
- Familiarity with DynamoDB, event-driven architectures, and distributed messaging systems
- Experience improving developer experience through platform engineering and internal tooling
- Previous experience as a founding engineer or technical lead
- Authorized to work in the United States; visa sponsorship not available
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What We Do
We translate complex, real-world environments into clear, actionable data. While most AI companies focus on digital industries, we design AI native orchestration systems for the sectors that extract, move, and build ecosystems around us. We turn messy, high stakes operations into intelligent, adaptive workflows that improve decisions in real time. Skiffra is led by Co-founders George Whitehouse, former head of Digital Transformation at Toyota who rebuilt complex mining operations into integrated, data driven systems, and Andy Smith, Intel and Dolby operator turned GP and 0-to-1 startup builder with more than 40 companies founded, advised, or invested and exits to DigitalOcean, IBM, Assa Abloy, and Cisco. In one recent nine month proof of concept focused on four value centers, the Skiffra team turned a 5 million dollar investment into a sustained 100 million dollar EBITDA lift for the client. Together they combine deep industrial execution with venture scale product discipline to build an AI operating system for mining first, and the wider physical world next.
Why Work With Us
We are well funded, offer best in class benefits and are building our founding technical team to work alongside our co-founders. Our first proving ground is mining and natural resources, but the platform is modular by design and built to scale into any industry where decisions are expensive and the consequences are real.









