Senior Engineer - Kubernetes

Datum’s mission is to help 1k clouds thrive in the AI era by unlocking internet superpowers for every builder. We’re working in the open to bring the foundational capabilities that all the big guys use (private networking, peering, direct interconnection, etc) into the hands of builders and modern “alt clouds” — no network team required. One of Datum’s core values is to be connectors: of applications, services, networks, and people.

As such, this role (just like all roles at Datum) will work directly with users, customers, partners, and the broader community. Another key value is to be open by default, from how we license our code (AGPLv3) to how we communicate, engage with, and document our work. We believe this engenders trust from our customers and community, but also because open is the best way to build.

It's more secure, more operable, and even more enjoyable. Still interested? Read on!

The Role
We're seeking a Senior+ Engineer to build and run critical components of the Datum Cloud control plane. This is a senior technical leadership role focused on designing and building features woven into our open source business operating system, Milo, a toolkit for modern AI-forward alt-clouds. You'll work extensively with distributed systems, vendor APIs, networking protocols, software-defined networking, and cloud-native infrastructure while solving complex orchestration challenges across multiple cloud providers and edge locations.

This role requires deep Kubernetes expertise, hardened by production operation, combined with a passion for open-source development and building systems that other engineers love to use.

What You'll Do
Control Plane Infrastructure & Architecture
Design, implement, and run Datum's core orchestration stack

Build customer-facing solutions to help our alt-cloud ecosystem thrive

Scale the management, monitoring, and metering of our edge locations

Partner with leadership to advance projects with key customers, partners, and suppliers

Distributed Systems & Performance
Design distributed solutions that scale from startup to hyperscale usage patterns

Implement intelligent traffic routing, load balancing, and failover

Build observability, monitoring, and diagnostic tools for complex environments

Optimize control plane performance for AI workloads and high-bandwidth applications with our network team

Open Source Leadership
Drive technical networking decisions in collaboration with our open-source community

Review and mentor contributions from external developers on networking components

Maintain high code quality standards and documentation for network APIs

Represent Datum at conferences and in technical working groups

Cloud-Native & AI Integration
Design networking solutions that integrate seamlessly with Kubernetes and AI patterns

Build network policies and security frameworks for multi-tenant cloud environments

Implement service mesh integration and east-west traffic optimization

Ensure compatibility with major cloud provider networking services (AWS, GCP, Azure)

About You
Distributed Systems
6+ years of large-scale production systems running Kubernetes with security as a first principle

Strong experience with Kubernetes patterns and APIs, having written custom resources, controllers, and preferably exposure to kubebuilder

Strong experience with distributed systems design, security, auth, consensus algorithms, async reconciliation, and fault tolerance

Experience modeling data in Kubernetes, or transferable knowledge from RDBMS, GraphQL, information retrieval

Cloud & Infrastructure Experience
Extensive experience with multi-cloud networking and hybrid cloud connectivity

Deep knowledge of Kubernetes networking, CNI plugins, and service mesh architectures

Experience with infrastructure as code (Flux, Terraform, Pulumi) for provisioning

Understanding of edge computing, CDN architectures, and global traffic management

Familiarity with SRv6, eBPF, DPDK, VPP, mpTCP and other advanced networking technologies would be a huge plus

Open Source & Leadership
Track record of contributing to or maintaining networking-focused open-source projects

Experience mentoring engineers and driving technical decision-making in teams

Understanding of open-source governance, community building, and public development

Passion for building networking tools that other developers and operators love to use

Technology Stack
Languages: Go, Rust

Data: PostgreSQL, GraphQL, Elasticsearch, Meilisearch

Infrastructure: Kubernetes, Flux, Pulumi

Cloud Platforms: Cloudflare, AWS, GCP, Azure, multi-cloud networking

Monitoring: Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry, network flow analysis

Development: GitHub, CI/CD, automated testing, network simulation

Open Source Commitment
This role involves significant public development work. You'll be:
Contributing to Datum's public networking repositories with transparent development

Engaging with the community through GitHub issues, RFCs, and technical discussions

Speaking at networking conferences and writing technical blog posts

Collaborating with external contributors, cloud providers, and other partners

Maintaining high standards for code quality, performance, and documentation

What Success Looks Like
Adoption and growth for Datum in the cloud-native and AI infrastructure communities

High-performance, reliable network connectivity across diverse cloud environments

Strong developer experience as evidenced by community contributions and feedback

Technical leadership recognized within the networking and distributed infra ecosystem

Scalable network architecture supporting the next generation of AI hyperscalers

We believe in openness, clarity, and collaboration. To learn more about how Datum aims to operate, please review our public handbook.