Director, Engineering

Employer description

Crusoe is on a mission to accelerate the abundance of energy and intelligence. As the only vertically integrated AI infrastructure company built from the ground up, we own and operate each layer of the stack — from electrons to tokens — to power the world’s most ambitious AI workloads. When you join Crusoe, you join a team that is building the future, faster.

We’re in the midst of the greatest industrial revolution of our time. The demand for AI compute is boundless, and power is a bottleneck. We’re solving that — with an energy-first approach that makes AI infrastructure better for the world and faster for the people innovating with AI.

We’re looking for problem-solving, opportunity-finding teammates with a sense of urgency, who believe in the scale of our ambition and thrive on a path not fully paved — people who want to grow their careers alongside a team of experts across energy, manufacturing, data center construction, and cloud services.

If you want to do the most meaningful work of your career, help our customers and partners advance their AI strategies, and be part of a high-performing team that believes in each other, come build with us at Crusoe.

About the Role:

We’re looking for a seasoned engineering leader to own and scale the GPU and data center infrastructure that powers our neocloud platform. This hands-on leadership role sits at the intersection of software and hardware. You’ll lead the teams building validation platforms, lifecycle automation, and orchestration services that keep our fleet healthy, while also owning firmware qualification, hardware security, deployments, and data center operations across a fleet growing roughly 10x year over year. Our fleet runs under a 99.5% monthly availability SLA, so your reliability and automation work is directly tied to revenue.

You’ll set the technical charter for fleet reliability and operational excellence, defining north-star availability metrics and building automation that replaces today’s manual processes. You’ll partner closely with Engineering, Product, Finance, and the executive team. The ideal candidate scales through systems rather than headcount, reasons from first principles, and leads from the front by digging into root causes. This is a full-time, senior leadership position.

What You’ll Be Working On:

Infrastructure Deployment & Fleet Management: Lead day-to-day fleet operations and greenfield deployments across co-location and owned facilities, from rack landing to customer availability. Own core fleet-health metrics and drive toward a 30-day time-to-sellable target.

Firmware Lifecycle Management: Build the pipeline to qualify and track every firmware release across 10+ SKUs and multiple OEMs/ODMs. Eliminate the qualification backlog (e.g., the ~66-day NVIDIA firmware lag), hold partners accountable, and evaluate in-house BMC development (OpenBMC).

Validation Framework & Platform: Consolidate siloed hardware automation pipelines and validation scripts into a single platform built on a proper workflow engine. Own bare-metal and multi-node burn-in/stress testing, define pass/fail criteria, deliver performance baselines (such as MFU) at cluster handover, and make stack-validation results a required approval criterion for production changes.

Data Center Infrastructure Engineering (DCIE): Own power, cooling, networking fabrics, and physical security. Prioritize RMAs ahead of warranty expiry, reduce manual node recoveries through lifecycle automation, and make that automation the source of truth for site deployments. Lead asset-visibility initiatives such as fleet-wide RFID and advanced DCIM tooling.

Hardware Security & Attestation: Own the strategy for trusted, tamper-evident hardware. Lead the design and rollout of firmware and OS integrity attestation (TPM-based identity, secure boot gating, remote attestation) that can quarantine compromised hardware, with no impact on customer training or inference workloads.

Reliability & Incident Operations: Define operational KPIs (uptime, PUE, MTTR, MTTD, MTBF), and establish runbooks, a tiered on-call model, and single-owner incident closure.

Procurement, CapEx & Budget Ownership: Partner with Procurement, Hardware, and Supply Chain on GPU and hardware sourcing, including pricing, supply commitments, and SLAs. Work with the Hardware leader on fleet capital and operating budgets, and report on fleet health, spend, and forecast to executive leadership.

Team Leadership & Outcome Alignment: Build, develop, and retain a high-performing team of fleet engineers, DC infrastructure professionals, and platform/automation software engineers. Translate engineering targets into clear business outcomes and define SLOs with Product across compute, storage, networking, and inference.

What You’ll Bring to the Team:

18+ years of experience in infrastructure, data center operations, or fleet management, including 6+ years in a senior leadership role

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience

Deep hands-on expertise with GPU infrastructure, including NVIDIA or AMD accelerator platforms

A genuine blend of software and hardware leadership, with equal credibility driving platform/automation software (workflow engines, orchestration, validation pipelines) and physical-layer DC operations

Experience operating or scaling data center infrastructure in a high-growth environment such as a neocloud, hyperscaler, or large enterprise

Strong command of DC fundamentals: power distribution, cooling systems, networking fabrics, and physical security

Proven ability to manage vendor relationships and negotiate large-scale infrastructure contracts ($50M+), and to own large CapEx budgets in partnership with Finance and Procurement

Excellent communication skills, with the ability to translate complex infrastructure topics for executive and non-technical audiences

Bonus Points

Prior experience at a neocloud or AI infrastructure company, and familiarity with GPU failure modes and auto-remediation techniques

Hands-on experience with firmware qualification, BMC/OpenBMC development, or hardware attestation (TPM, secure boot, remote attestation)

Familiarity with InfiniBand, RoCE, or other high-performance networking fabrics at scale

Experience building validation/burn-in platforms and multi-node performance benchmarking (e.g., MFU, collective communication tests)

Exposure to DCIM, asset management/RFID, or lifecycle automation and fleet orchestration tools (e.g., NetBox, Temporal), or a background in sustainability initiatives such as renewable energy procurement

Benefits:

Competitive compensation and equity packages

Restricted Stock Units

Paid time off, paid holidays & leave of absence programs

Comprehensive health, dental & vision insurance

Employer contributions to HSA account

Paid parental leave

Paid life insurance, short-term and long-term disability

Professional development & tuition reimbursement

Mental health & wellness support

Commuter benefits (parking & transit)

Cell phone stipend

401(k) Retirement plan with company match up to 4% of salary

Volunteer time off

Global travel insurance & emergency assistance

Daily meals allowance

Additional perks & programs specific to location

Compensation Range

Compensation will be paid in the range of up to $325,000 - $370,000 + Bonus. Restricted Stock Units are included in all offers. Compensation to be determined by the applicant’s knowledge, education, and abilities, as well as internal equity and alignment with market data.

Crusoe is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, disability, genetic information, pregnancy, citizenship, marital status, sex/gender, sexual preference/ orientation, gender identity, age, veteran status, national origin, or any other status protected by law or regulation.