Cloud - Bare Metal Infrastructure Engineer

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Cloud - Bare Metal Infrastructure Engineer based in Canada.This is an opportunity to build and scale the physical infrastructure behind a modern cloud platform, taking a new colocation site from initial deployment to production and beyond. You will design and automate the complete lifecycle of bare metal servers, from hardware discovery and provisioning to maintenance and retirement. Working closely with network engineering and Kubernetes platform teams, you will help make physical infrastructure as accessible and reliable as cloud capacity. Your work will establish the technical foundations and operational standards for future sites and a fleet of thousands of hosts. This role offers significant ownership, technical influence, and the chance to shape infrastructure at the intersection of hardware, automation, and cloud-native systems.Accountabilities:
Lead the deployment of the first colocation site, taking it from an empty facility space to production-ready infrastructure, and scale the architecture across additional sites and thousands of hosts.
Design automated server provisioning workflows, including network booting, imaging, BMC-driven hardware discovery, and host identity management.
Collaborate with network engineering to define and implement connectivity requirements for the fleet, covering out-of-band management and production networking.
Develop the interfaces and tools used by the Kubernetes platform team to request infrastructure capacity, monitor host health, and coordinate maintenance activities.
Maintain an authoritative source of truth for hardware inventory, software configuration, and physical infrastructure.
Automate the full server lifecycle, including hardware burn-in, acceptance testing, fault remediation, staged firmware deployments, and return merchandise authorization (RMA) processes.
Build reliable, production-grade automation with safeguards for destructive operations and resilience against site-level failures.
Influence the technical and operational strategy of the bare metal platform, including build-versus-buy decisions and approaches to managing large-scale infrastructure.
Contribute to growing the infrastructure team and establishing the practices needed to operate an expanding fleet.
Requirements:
Hands-on experience building and operating automation for bare metal server fleets in data centers or colocation environments.
Practical experience with both physical infrastructure and software-driven fleet management, including working directly with hardware and colocation providers.
Strong programming skills in Go or Python.
Experience designing reliable systems using reconciliation loops, idempotent operations, and failure-tolerant automation.
Strong troubleshooting skills and the ability to understand and debug infrastructure tools beyond their abstraction layers.
Experience managing real-world infrastructure failures, such as faulty hardware batches, unstable baseboard management controllers (BMCs), or interrupted rollouts.
Deep knowledge of Linux and solid networking fundamentals, including DHCP, PXE, DNS, and BGP.
Working knowledge of Kubernetes and the ability to design effective integration points between physical infrastructure and the clusters running on it.
Clear communication skills, sound technical judgment, and comfort working in ambiguous environments.
Willingness to challenge assumptions and raise concerns when technical plans or proposed approaches need reconsideration.
Nice-to-have qualifications:Experience operating bare metal fleets at the scale of thousands of hosts.
Previous involvement in an early-stage data center or bare metal infrastructure build-out.
Experience managing hybrid infrastructure or migrating workloads between public cloud environments and owned hardware.
Familiarity with DCIM/IPAM tools such as NetBox or Nautobot, or provisioning technologies such as Ironic, Metal3, Tinkerbell, or MAAS.
Experience developing reconcilers or state machines for physical infrastructure.
Hardware expertise covering component diagnostics, burn-in tooling, firmware management, Redfish, or IPMI at fleet scale.
Experience building internal platforms or APIs for infrastructure teams.
Location near colocation facilities or the ability to visit them regularly.
Candidates are encouraged to apply even if they do not meet every listed qualification, as relevant experience and transferable skills are also valued.Benefits:
Annual compensation range of
$230,000-$290,000, depending on experience, transferable skills, location, business needs, and market conditions.
Equity participation.
Four weeks of paid vacation.
Fourteen weeks of fully paid parental leave for parents welcoming a child through birth, adoption, or foster care, with support for returning to work.
Long-term disability insurance and life insurance.
401(k) retirement plan.
Employer-paid medical coverage for employees and one dependent.
Employer-paid dental and vision coverage at 99% for employees and one dependent.
Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs) and Health Savings Accounts (HSAs).
Monthly lifestyle stipend that can support wellness, mental health, therapy, hobbies, and other personal interests.
Monthly mobile phone and internet subsidy.
Home office stipend for remote employees.
Commuter benefits for employees based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Continuous learning benefits and professional development support.
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