System Software Engineer, Node & Cluster Management - Mountain View, CA, United States
$250,000 - $475,000 USD yearly
Originally posted 14 July 2026 by the employer.
About the role
The host system software team owns the software stack for AI silicon and systems, spanning Linux kernel drivers up through node and cluster management. The team co-owns the BMC/OpenBMC firmware stack alongside firmware engineers to unify host software and out-of-band management.
What you'll do
- Design and build the node-level management plane to expose node health, inventory, telemetry, and control operations through HTTP/REST endpoints. - Design and implement cluster management solutions and failover algorithms to minimize downtime. - Build management CLI utilities to interact with on-node management and telemetry daemons for querying state, running diagnostics, updating firmware, and device recovery. - Partner with BMC firmware engineers to deliver unified management, observability, firmware update orchestration, and recovery flows across in-band and out-of-band paths. - Extend capabilities to cluster-level systems for fleet-wide health aggregation, device inventory, alerting hooks, and customer fleet-management integration. - Debug production issues spanning management APIs, daemons, kernel drivers, BMC firmware, and hardware.
What you'll need
- BS or higher in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or equivalent practical experience, with 8+ years in systems software. - Hands-on Linux systems development experience, including low-level userspace software and reading/debugging kernel driver and daemon code. - Programming proficiency in C plus a systems language suited to services and tooling (Go, Rust, C++, and/or Python). - Experience designing and building HTTP/REST APIs and CLI tools for hardware or infrastructure management. - Understanding of low-level systems including device drivers, telemetry paths, PCIe device behavior, and BMC-managed subsystems. - Proven debugging experience across API, daemon, kernel, firmware, and hardware boundaries.
Nice to have
- Experience with Redfish, OpenBMC, gNMI, IPMI, or other datacenter hardware management standards. - Cluster or fleet management experience for GPU or accelerator infrastructure. - Experience with hardware bring-up, lab automation, or manufacturing/qualification test infrastructure. - Familiarity with firmware update orchestration, secure boot, or attestation flows.
Skills: node management, cluster management, HTTP/REST APIs, CLI utilities, Linux systems, BMC firmware
This role has been open 98 days — well above the 50-day median for Infrastructure/Platform Software roles.
Infrastructure/Platform Software · Infrastructure Platform
|
Open roles in category
988
|
Median days open
50 d
|
Median salary
$235k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | MatX | All employers we track in this specialty (988 roles · 87 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 5 | 988 |
| Open roles in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family | 35 | 6222 · 145 employers |
| Median days open | 35 d | 50 d (−15 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $235k |
Skills observed across this category: node management, cluster management, HTTP/REST APIs, CLI utilities, Linux systems, BMC firmware
Who's hiring in this category
- NVIDIA · 286 open roles · median 47 d
- Qualcomm · 62 open roles · median 50 d
- AMD · 56 open roles · median 21 d
- Intel Corporation · 45 open roles · median 13 d
- Graphcore · 44 open roles · median 95 d
- Cerebras · 38 open roles · median 85 d
How we counted: 988 open Infrastructure/Platform Software (Infrastructure Platform) roles from 87 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 20 Oct 2026. Specialty figures count only roles carrying this exact specialty label, so an employer's related work in neighbouring specialties is not included there — it is counted in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family row. Figures refresh nightly.