Forward Deployed Engineer (Site Reliability / Infrastructure)

Lambda, The Superintelligence Cloud, is a leader in AI cloud infrastructure serving tens of thousands of customers. Our customers range from AI researchers to enterprises and hyperscalers. Lambda's mission is to make compute as ubiquitous as electricity and give everyone the power of superintelligence. One person, one GPU.

If you'd like to build the world's best AI cloud, join us.

*Note: This position requires presence in our upcoming Bellevue office location or on-site with strategic customers 4 days per week; Lambda’s designated work from home day is currently Tuesday.

About The Role

We're looking for a Forward Deployed Engineer to embed directly with a strategic customer, serving as the technical bridge between Lambda and their team. You'll work where model performance matters most, delivery timelines are urgent, and ambiguity is the default state. Your job is to map problems, structure delivery paths, and ship solutions that create measurable impact.

What You’ll Do

Customer Engagement

• Embed on-site with a named strategic customer, becoming an extension of their team

• Act as the primary technical liaison between Lambda and the customer organization

• Navigate ambiguous requirements to identify root problems and define clear technical solutions

• Drive alignment across internal Lambda teams and customer stakeholders

Technical Delivery

• Scope, sequence, and build full-stack solutions that deliver measurable business value

• Design and implement infrastructure optimizations for AI/ML workloads at scale

• Debug complex distributed systems issues across the infrastructure stack

• Ship iteratively and learn fast, adjusting approach based on customer feedback and results

Strategic Impact

• Identify reusable patterns from customer engagements that can scale across Lambda's customer base

• Surface field intelligence that influences Lambda's product roadmap

• Document and share learnings to elevate the capabilities of the broader team

• Represent Lambda with executive presence in high-stakes customer interactions

About You

Must-Have

• 6+ years of experience in a SRE, software engineer, or similar role, with a deep knowledge of running Linux clusters and systems

• Strong programming skills in Go and Python; experience with GitOps (e.g., ArgoCD), Helm, and Kubernetes operators

• Proven experience operating Kubernetes clusters in production environments (on-prem, EKS, GKE, or similar)

• Hands-on experience with AI/ML workload management tools (Volcano, Kubeflow, or similar)

• Can work either independently with limited direction or as part of a team

• Familiarity with observability tools like Prometheus, Grafana, FluentBit, and CI/CD pipelines

• Proven experience provisioning Kubernetes using tools such as kubeadm, Cluster API, or similar

• Excellent communication skills with the ability to translate technical complexity for diverse audiences

• Executive presence and ability to represent Lambda in customer-facing situations

• Comfort operating in ambiguous environments with competing priorities

• Strong bias for action and shipping iteratively

Nice-to-Have

• Deep Kubernetes expertise: CRDs, CSI, CNI, Kubernetes Operator Coding experience

• Exposure to HPC clusters, AI/ML workloads, or large-scale GPU clusters

• Hybrid or multi-cloud Kubernetes environment experience

• Contributions to CNCF projects or Kubernetes SIGs

Why Join Us

• Work on cutting-edge Managed Kubernetes platforms for AI/ML workloads

• Influence the platform roadmap and help shape operations and reliability best practices

• Collaborate with a highly skilled engineer

• Opportunity to mentor and grow within a fast-growing, technology-driven environment

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, with 500+ employees, and growing fast

• Our investors notably include TWG Global, US Innovative Technology Fund (USIT), Andra Capital, SGW, Andrej Karpathy, ARK Invest, Fincadia Advisors, G Squared, In-Q-Tel (IQT), KHK & Partners, NVIDIA, Pegatron, Supermicro, Wistron, Wiwynn, Gradient Ventures, Mercato Partners, SVB, 1517, and Crescent Cove

• We have research papers accepted at top machine learning and graphics conferences, including NeurIPS, ICCV, SIGGRAPH, and TOG

• Our values are publicly available: https://lambda.ai/careers

• We offer generous cash & equity compensation

• 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.