We started by building infrastructure to run CI workloads really fast. Our first product helps companies run GitHub Actions substantially faster and cheaper by owning and operating our own global fleet of bare-metal machines rather than renting generic cloud VMs.
Today, we orchestrate tens of millions of Firecracker VMs each month, running CI for 1,200+ companies and hit ~$10M in ARR in less than 2 years.
We operate thousands of bare-metal machines across multiple regions, regularly schedule 30k+ vCPUs concurrently, and run a petabyte-scale Ceph cluster that we manage ourselves.
We’ve raised $13.5M across Seed and Series A, led by Google Ventures (GV), and we’re intentionally building a small, but exceptional team.
Blacksmith was founded by a team with deep systems and scaling experience, including building search/ads infrastructure at Faire, and operating large distributed systems at Cockroach Labs. Our GTM is led by Jon Boyer, formerly Head of Sales at Zapier.
We’re now extending the same CI infrastructure into a broader platform: running agent sandboxes at scale and building our own background coding agent on top of it.
Build deep, trusted relationships with engineering leadership, platform/SRE teams, and power users.
Understand each customer’s CI architecture, engineering priorities, and long-term goals.
Ensure customers fully realize the performance and cost benefits of Blacksmith’s CI cloud.
Develop adoption plans aligned to customer goals — including CI modernization, ephemeral runner architecture, and cloud cost reduction.
Identify expansion opportunities and partner with Sales to execute on them.
Partner closely with Sales and Solutions Engineering to ensure smooth onboarding and technical handoff.
Help customers navigate POCs → rollout → scale-up phases with confidence and clarity.
Advise on GitHub Actions optimization, ephemeral compute architecture, pipeline performance tuning, and migration planning.
Provide coaching on CI workload patterns, caching, concurrency strategies, and cloud cost visibility.
Run enablement sessions, technical workshops, and hands-on guidance for engineering teams.
Surface pain points, product gaps, and emerging needs from enterprise engineering organizations.
Influence the roadmap by partnering closely with Product and Engineering.
Collaborate on feature validation, rollout planning, and beta programs.
Track usage patterns, job throughput, cost efficiency, and pipeline performance.
Diagnose issues, escalate when needed, and coordinate solutions across Engineering and Support.
Run Quarterly Business Reviews with VP- and CTO-level stakeholders to align on impact and future opportunities.
Own retention and renewal motions in partnership with Sales.
Ensure customers continually adopt new capabilities and expand workloads on Blacksmith.
Help build repeatable frameworks for enterprise onboarding and CI modernization.
4–8 years of experience in TAM, Solutions Engineering, Customer Success Engineering, or DevOps/Platform roles. Experience with enterprise software, cloud infrastructure, CI/CD, or developer tools is strongly preferred.
Strong technical fluency
Understanding of CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions a major plus)
Familiarity with containers, cloud infrastructure, ephemeral compute, caching, and workflow orchestration
Able to diagnose CI performance issues and guide engineering teams toward best practices
Deep empathy for developers and platform teams. You understand how engineering organizations operate and what modern DevOps teams care about.
Exceptional communication and executive presence. Comfort presenting to VP/CTO audiences while also diving deep with engineering ICs.
A strategic, proactive approach to account management. You look around corners, anticipate customer needs, and ensure long-term alignment.
A bias for action and startup scrappiness. You move quickly, solve problems creatively, and thrive in a fast-paced, ambiguous environment.
Hands-on experience with GitHub Actions, self-hosted runners, or CI system tuning
Prior work in performance engineering, DevOps tooling, or cloud cost optimization
Experience shaping post-sales programs at an early-stage startup
Curiosity about AI in developer workflows and modern engineering automation
Competitive salary + meaningful equity
Medical, dental, and vision insurance
Unlimited PTO
Early-exercise stock options
12 weeks fully paid parental leave (U.S.)
Annual team offsite
Top Skills
Blacksmith San Francisco, California, USA Office
San Francisco, California, United States
Similar Jobs at Blacksmith
What you need to know about the San Francisco Tech Scene
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
