Lightning AI is the company behind PyTorch Lightning. Founded in 2019, we build an end-to-end platform for developing, training, and deploying AI systems—designed to take ideas from research to production with less friction.
Through our merger with Voltage Park, a neocloud and AI Factory, Lightning AI combines developer-first software with cost-efficient, large-scale compute. Teams get the tools they need for experimentation, training, and production inference, with security, observability, and control built in.
We serve solo researchers, startups, and large enterprises. Lightning AI operates globally with offices in New York City, San Francisco, Seattle, and London, and is backed by Coatue, Index Ventures, Bain Capital Ventures, and Firstminute.
The Way We WorkThe people who thrive here are builders who move fast, communicate openly, take ownership, and continuously improve themselves, their teams, and our company. Here's what that looks like in practice:
- Move with Urgency: We move quickly, make thoughtful decisions, and keep momentum. We value action over perfection and learn by shipping.
- Take Ownership: We own outcomes, not just our individual work. We make decisions that move the company forward and follow through.
- Communicate Openly: We communicate directly, seek to understand, and create clarity for others. Honest conversations help us move faster together.
- Build Great Teams: We lead by example, empower others, and create healthy teams where people can do their best work.
- Raise the Bar: We're always improving ourselves. We learn from feedback, consistently challenge ourselves to grow, and focus on the work that matters most.
- Think Long-Term: We design for what's next. We create scalable systems, simplify complexity, and use AI and automation to amplify our impact.
Lightning AI is seeking an experienced Senior Infrastructure Operations Engineer to help operate and scale the infrastructure behind one of the world's largest GPU fleets.
Our Infrastructure Operations team sits at the center of production reliability for Lightning's AI infrastructure. The team works across Linux, bare-metal servers, GPUs, networking, storage, provisioning, and cluster orchestration, serving as a critical technical escalation point when complex infrastructure issues arise.
What You'll Do- Operate and troubleshoot large-scale GPU and bare-metal infrastructure across Linux, compute, networking, storage, and cluster orchestration.
- Serve as a technical escalation point for complex infrastructure issues, driving problems from initial investigation through resolution and root cause analysis.
- Own operational workflows across the infrastructure lifecycle, including provisioning, configuration, validation, maintenance, remediation, and decommissioning.
- Build automation and internal tooling that eliminates repetitive operational work and enables the infrastructure fleet to scale efficiently.
- Identify recurring failure modes and partner with Infrastructure Engineering to build more reliable, repeatable, and automated systems.
- Improve provisioning, monitoring, diagnostics, and operational processes across a rapidly growing infrastructure footprint.
- Partner closely with Infrastructure Engineering, Network Engineering, Data Center Operations, Customer Experience, and Platform Engineering to resolve issues that cross team or system boundaries.
- Participate in a distributed primary/secondary on-call rotation supporting production infrastructure.
- Strong experience operating and troubleshooting Linux-based production infrastructure at scale.
- Experience troubleshooting complex infrastructure issues across compute, networking, storage, and operating systems.
- Strong automation and scripting skills using Python, Go, Bash, Ansible, or similar tools.
- Experience with Kubernetes, Slurm, or other cluster and workload orchestration systems.
- Experience using monitoring, observability, and telemetry systems to diagnose and troubleshoot production infrastructure.
- Strong systems and networking fundamentals, with a track record of owning production issues through resolution.
- Comfortable working in ambiguous environments and collaborating across engineering, operations, and customer-facing teams.
- Experience troubleshooting, provisioning, or operating bare-metal server infrastructure.
- Experience operating or troubleshooting GPU, HPC, or other high-performance compute infrastructure.
- Familiarity with NVIDIA GPUs, DCGM, InfiniBand, RoCE/RDMA, NVLink, or high-speed data center networking.
- Experience with hardware management and provisioning technologies such as PXE, BMC, IPMI, Redfish, or iDRAC.
- Experience with distributed or high-performance storage systems such as VAST, Ceph, GPFS, or WEKA.
- Experience with infrastructure-as-code, configuration management, or GitOps workflows.
We are committed to offering competitive compensation that reflects the value each team member brings to our mission. Final offers are based on factors such as experience, skills, geographic location, and role expectations. In addition to base salary, our total rewards package for eligible roles includes a discretionary bonus, a meaningful equity component, and comprehensive benefits.
We offer a comprehensive and competitive benefits package designed to support our employees’ health, well-being, and long-term success:
- Comprehensive Health Coverage: Medical, dental, and vision coverage for employees and eligible dependents.
- Meaningful Equity: RSUs that give employees a stake in the company's long-term success.
- Retirement Savings: 401(k) matching (U.S.) and pension contributions (U.K.).
- Flexible Time Off: Unlimited PTO, company holidays, and floating holidays to support work-life balance.
- Company-Wide Winter Break: Two weeks of company closure each winter to disconnect and recharge.
- Paid Parental & Family Leave: Paid leave to support you and your family through life's important moments.
- Professional Development: Annual learning and development allowance to support your professional growth.
- Wellness Benefits: Wellness and work-from-home stipends to support your physical and mental well-being.
- Sabbatical Program: Four weeks of paid sabbatical leave after four years of service.
- Flexible Work: Flexible schedules and a hybrid work model for our office-based teams.
- In-Office Meals: Complimentary meals at our office hubs.
Benefits may vary by location, team, and role.
At Lightning AI, we are committed to fostering an inclusive and diverse workplace. We believe that diverse teams drive innovation and create better products. We provide equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic. We are dedicated to building a culture where everyone can thrive and contribute to their fullest potential.
Skills Required
- 8+ years of experience working with Linux as a server or hosting platform; Ubuntu experience is preferred.
- 5+ years of experience with AWS.
- 2+ years of experience with Kubernetes and strong container fundamentals.
- 2+ years of experience with Terraform and Ansible.
- 2+ years of network-attached storage management using NFS, Ceph, or other protocols.
- Experience with monitoring systems such as Prometheus and the ELK stack.
- Familiarity with GitOps workflows.
- Software development experience using Python, Go, Bash, or other languages for automation and system/API integration.
- Deep networking fundamentals.
- Experience building and delivering complex systems.
- Ability to navigate tradeoffs between design, risk, cost, and outcomes.
- Ability to navigate ambiguity.
- Strong written and oral communication skills.
- Experience troubleshooting and provisioning bare-metal hardware; Dell hardware experience is preferred.
- Experience with GPU servers in bare-metal or virtualized environments.
- Deep experience with network switches, routers, and firewalls, particularly SONiC, Palo Alto, and Juniper.
- Experience with VAST storage systems.
- Experience with datacenter-level networks, 400Gb Ethernet, or InfiniBand.
What We Do
Our platform provides intuitive open source tools, powerful cloud infrastructure and expertise to help you build AI securely.
Why Work With Us
Our team has shaped groundbreaking AI projects like PyTorch and PyTorch Lightning. We’re educators, innovators, and collaborators, united by a mission to democratize AI. A hybrid based company headquartered in New York City, we value in-person time for collaboration while still allowing flexibility.
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