Drive the design and operation of the Gradient AI platform, focusing on architecture, technical excellence, and innovation. Collaborate across teams, mentor engineers, and lead initiatives for scalability, performance, and reliability in AI/ML development.
Dive in and do the best work of your career at DigitalOcean. Journey alongside a strong community of top talent who are relentless in their drive to build the simplest scalable cloud. If you have a growth mindset, naturally like to think big and bold, and are energized by the fast-paced environment of a true industry disruptor, you’ll find your place here. We value winning together—while learning, having fun, and making a profound difference for the dreamers and builders in the world.
AI coding agents are changing how software gets written. The infrastructure to run them reliably in production — persistent memory, cost controls, isolated execution, full observability — is still being built. That's what this team is solving.
As Principal Engineer for Managed Agents, you'll own the technical architecture of DigitalOcean's agent runtime platform: session lifecycle, memory, execution isolation, and the developer experience that ties it together. This is a company-level IC role — you'll set direction for multiple teams, influence the product roadmap, and define what production-grade agent infrastructure looks like at a company with the infrastructure depth and developer trust to make it real.
What You'll Do:Define the architecture- Own the long-term technical design of the agent runtime: session lifecycle, memory persistence across sessions, execution isolation, and agent-to-tool interaction.
- Drive the memory layer — short-term context, long-term structured memory, episodic recall — ensuring it's reliable and practical for real production workloads.
- Set the bar for how coding agents integrate with developer infrastructure: repositories, CI/CD, and existing developer workflows.
- Build alignment across engineering pillars on a shared technical direction — resolving conflicts and maintaining momentum on a platform that spans infrastructure, AI, and developer experience.
- Partner with product to shape the multi-year strategy, not just the current release.
- Represent DigitalOcean in the agent infrastructure space through conference talks, open-source engagement, and relationships with the framework teams whose work runs on this platform.
- Inform ecosystem partnerships and vendor decisions with technical depth and strategic judgment.
- Be the technical north star for Staff and Senior engineers across the Managed Agents org — coaching on architecture, tradeoffs, and what good looks like.
- Define engineering standards for how DigitalOcean builds, ships, and monitors production agent systems.
You've built production infrastructure developers trust at scale. You're technically exceptional and organizationally effective. You likely bring:
- 12+ years building production infrastructure, AI/ML systems, developer tools, or cloud platforms — shipping things developers depend on at scale.
- Deep expertise in agent memory systems (retrieval, long-term context, grounding) or AI coding assistance (code understanding, execution environments, developer workflow integration).
- Experience with distributed systems lifecycle management: session persistence, state snapshotting, execution isolation, or multi-tier storage.
- A track record of driving technical decisions across multiple teams — not just recommending, but executing across organizational boundaries.
- The ability to communicate a technical vision to engineers, executives, and industry audiences — and make each one trust it.
- Strong software engineering in Python and at least one production systems language. You still write code.
- Prior Principal Engineer, Distinguished Engineer, or equivalent IC — with company-level impact, not just team or pillar.
- Experience building developer infrastructure: cloud runtimes, execution sandboxes, CI/CD systems, or platforms other engineers build on top of.
- Hands-on experience with agent memory or retrieval in production: RAG, semantic search, knowledge graphs, or long-term session context.
- External technical leadership: conference talks, open-source ownership, publications, or standards work in AI infrastructure or developer tooling.
- Master's or PhD in CS, distributed systems, ML, AI, or equivalent depth through industry work and public contributions.
- Experience with virtualization primitives: microVMs, Firecracker, gVisor, or OCI runtimes.
- Familiarity with agent frameworks in production: LangGraph, CrewAI, Claude Agent SDK, OpenAI Agents SDK, or similar.
- Patents, publications, or significant open-source work in agent systems, cloud infrastructure, or applied ML.
- $227,040 - $283,800
*This is a hybrid role
JR: 2025-7060
#LI-Hybrid
Why You’ll Like Working for DigitalOcean
- We innovate with purpose. You’ll be a part of a cutting-edge technology company with an upward trajectory, who are proud to simplify cloud and AI so builders can spend more time creating software that changes the world. As a member of the team, you will be a Shark who thinks big, bold, and scrappy, like an owner with a bias for action and a powerful sense of responsibility for customers, products, employees, and decisions.
- We prioritize career development. At DO, you’ll do the best work of your career. You will work with some of the smartest and most interesting people in the industry. We are a high-performance organization that will always challenge you to think big. Our organizational development team will provide you with resources to ensure you keep growing. We provide employees with reimbursement for relevant conferences, training, and education. All employees have access to LinkedIn Learning's 10,000+ courses to support their continued growth and development.
- We care about your well-being. Regardless of your location, we will provide you with a competitive array of benefits to support you from our Employee Assistance Program to Local Employee Meetups to flexible time off policy, to name a few. While the philosophy around our benefits is the same worldwide, specific benefits may vary based on local regulations and preferences.
- We reward our employees. The salary range for this position is based on market data, relevant years of experience, and skills. You may qualify for a bonus in addition to base salary; bonus amounts are determined based on company and individual performance. We also provide equity compensation to eligible employees, including equity grants upon hire and the option to participate in our Employee Stock Purchase Program.
- DigitalOcean is an equal-opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, ancestry, national origin, caste, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or expression, age, disability, medical condition, pregnancy, genetic makeup, marital status, or military service.
Application Limit: You may apply to a maximum of 3 positions within any 180-day period. This policy promotes better role-candidate matching and encourages thoughtful applications where your qualifications align most strongly.
DigitalOcean Santa Clara, California, USA Office
3979 Freedom Cir, Suite 540, Santa Clara, CA, United States, 95054
Similar Jobs at DigitalOcean
Artificial Intelligence • Cloud • Software • Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
The Staff AI Product Manager will drive product strategy for GPU offerings, conduct market analysis, collaborate with teams for product development, and advocate for customer needs. Responsible for managing product lifecycle and utilizing data-driven approaches for product success.
Top Skills:
AIConfluenceGpuHpcJIRAMl
Artificial Intelligence • Cloud • Software • Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
Lead engineering efforts for innovative storage solutions, develop and support distributed systems, automate and troubleshoot production systems, and collaborate with a motivated team.
Top Skills:
CephDockerGoKubernetesLinuxS3
Artificial Intelligence • Cloud • Software • Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
Serve as a strategic technical partner for key customers: design and advise on cloud architectures, run technical workshops, proactively monitor usage, resolve escalations with engineering, drive retention and expansion, and develop tools and documentation to improve Technical Account Management efficiency.
Top Skills:
Ai/Ml InfrastructureAnsibleAWSAzureCi/CdCiscoDigitalocean ApiDockerGainsightGitGoGoogle Cloud PlatformJuniperKubernetesKvmLinuxMongoDBMySQLPythonSalesforceSQLTerraformXen
What you need to know about the San Francisco Tech Scene
San Francisco and the surrounding Bay Area attracts more startup funding than any other region in the world. Home to Stanford University and UC Berkeley, leading VC firms and several of the world’s most valuable companies, the Bay Area is the place to go for anyone looking to make it big in the tech industry. That said, San Francisco has a lot to offer beyond technology thanks to a thriving art and music scene, excellent food and a short drive to several of the country’s most beautiful recreational areas.
Key Facts About San Francisco Tech
- Number of Tech Workers: 365,500; 13.9% of overall workforce (2024 CompTIA survey)
- Major Tech Employers: Google, Apple, Salesforce, Meta
- Key Industries: Artificial intelligence, cloud computing, fintech, consumer technology, software
- Funding Landscape: $50.5 billion in venture capital funding in 2024 (Pitchbook)
- Notable Investors: Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer Venture Partners, Greylock Partners, Khosla Ventures, Kleiner Perkins
- Research Centers and Universities: Stanford University; University of California, Berkeley; University of San Francisco; Santa Clara University; Ames Research Center; Center for AI Safety; California Institute for Regenerative Medicine
