System Software Engineer, Node & Cluster Management

What MatX Is Building MatX's mission is to make the world’s best AI models run as efficiently as allowed by physics, bringing the world years ahead in AI quality and availability. MatX is seeking System Software Engineer to join our team as we create best-in-class silicon for high-performance and sustainable GenAI. Successful candidates for these roles will be responsible for delivering performant and functionally accurate silicon for MatX products across compute, memory management. High-speed connectivity and other key technologies. The MatX host system software team owns everything that makes our AI silicon and systems usable: from Linux kernel drivers up through node and cluster management. The team also co-owns the BMC/OpenBMC firmware stack, with dedicated firmware engineers, so host software and out-of-band management are designed together rather than bolted together. We're looking for self-driven engineers who can take a hardware spec and a register map and just start building — prototype drivers, low-level utilities that talk directly to the chip, daemons, and tooling — with minimal hand-holding. Each engineer on this team has a primary focus area, but ownership of overlapping components is shared, and you should expect (and want) to venture across the stack. What You'll Do Here - Design and build the node-level management plane for MatX's AI systems: expose node health, inventory, telemetry, and control operations through HTTP/REST endpoints (e.g., Redfish-style or custom APIs) - Design and implement cluster management solutions and failover algorithms to minimize downtime - Build the management CLI utilities that operators and internal engineers use daily — interacting with the on-node management and telemetry daemons to query state, run diagnostics, update firmware, and recover devices - Partner with our BMC firmware engineers to present unified management and observability across in-band and out-of-band paths — so operators see one coherent node, whether data comes from the host daemons or the BMC (e.g., unified Redfish-style views, firmware update orchestration across host and BMC, and recovery flows that work even when the host is down) - Extend node-level capabilities to cluster level: fleet-wide health aggregation, device inventory, alerting hooks, and integration points for our customers' own fleet-management systems - Get hands-on with the low-level stack: you'll regularly need to drop below the API layer — into the telemetry daemon, driver interfaces, or raw device access utilities — to prototype, debug, or unblock yourself - Build tooling and automation for managing lab systems during bring-up: provisioning, test orchestration, regression monitoring - Define the software contracts between the on-node daemons, the BMC stack, and the management layer — shared-ownership boundaries you'll co-design - Debug production-grade issues spanning management APIs, daemons, kernel drivers, BMC firmware, and hardware - Help shape what "manageable at scale" means for a new hardware platform, from single node to full rack to cluster Who You Are - BS or higher in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or equivalent practical experience, with 8+ years in systems software — this is not a pure web-services role; deep low-level systems experience is required - Strong hands-on Linux systems development experience, including low-level userspace software; comfortable reading and debugging kernel driver and daemon code - Strong programming skills 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 - Solid understanding of how the pieces underneath your APIs actually work — device drivers, telemetry paths, PCIe device behavior, BMC-managed subsystems — and the instinct to go look when something misbehaves - Experienced debugging across API, daemon, kernel, firmware, and hardware boundaries - Comfortable working with firmware engineers to align host-side and BMC-side management capabilities behind common interfaces - Self-driven and pragmatic: able to stand up a working management endpoint against brand-new hardware with minimal specification Bonus Points If You Have - Experience with Redfish, OpenBMC, gNMI, IPMI, or other datacenter hardware management standards - Cluster/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 Compensation The US base salary for this full-time position is determined based on a variety of factors including role, experience, location, job-related skills, and relevant education and training. Career length is only a guideline for compensation. - Early Career - $160,000 - $275,000 + equity - Mid Career - $175,000 - $400,000 + equity - Senior Career - $250,000 - $600,000 + equity What We Offer - Time off: 4 weeks PTO (accrued) + 12 company Holidays + up to 3 weeks remote work - Health: Company-subsidized Medical (Kaiser or Anthem) for employees & dependents, Guardian Dental and Vision insurances for employee & dependents, and life insurance (employee only), plus HSA and FSA offerings via Lively. - Financial Wellbeing: Choose from Roth IRA/ 401K (or both) retirement plans with up to 5% company contribution to 401K (even if you don't contribute). Also, 100% company-paid life insurance (up to $300K) and long-term disability insurances. - Professional Development: $1500 Professional Development Budget (per year) - Team Meals: MatX provides onsite team lunch & dinner Monday - Friday, with your choice of ordering via WeBox, Specialty’s or via our reimbursement system - Commute on Us: Commute on our company Uber account, or reimburse your train rides. Either way, we pay 100% for your daily commute. - MatX E[x]tras: $50/mo to use on the perk you value most - Cell & Internet Reimbursement: $35/mo for cellular and $40/mo for wifi - Mental Wellbeing: 100% paid mental health benefit via SpringHealth and Guardian EAP. - Support to Parents: Up to 12 weeks paid parental leave regardless of path to parenthood, 10 weeks pregnancy disability leave, flexible return-to-work hours, and Benepass reproductive health & parental benefit. - AI Resources: Up to $20K/month plus a dedicated internal AI Tooling Team to support your productivity As part of our dedication to the diversity of our team and our focus on creating an inviting and inclusive work experience, MatX is committed to a policy of Equal Employment Opportunity and will not discriminate against an applicant or employee on the basis of race, color, religion, creed, national origin or ancestry, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, physical or mental disability, medical condition, marital/domestic partner status, military and veteran status, genetic information or any other legally recognized protected basis under federal, state or local laws, regulations or ordinances. All candidates must be authorized to work in the United States and work from our offices in Mountain View Tuesdays-Thursdays. This position requires access to information that is subject to U.S. export controls. This offer of employment is contingent upon the applicant's capacity to perform job functions in compliance with U.S. export control laws without obtaining a license from U.S. export control authorities. MatX does not accept unsolicited resumes from individual recruiters or third-party recruiting agencies in response to job postings. No fee will be paid to third parties who submit unsolicited candidates directly to our hiring managers or People team and any resumes submitted are deemed to be the property of MatX.