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Open nowPosted 35 hours agoWe saw it 84 min after it went up

Distinguished/Principal Engineer

Crux, Inc.29 open roles

Where
Palo Alto
Work mode
Hybrid
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Your applicationOpen nowDistinguished/Principal EngineerCrux, Inc. · Palo Alto

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The clock on this job

Early applications get read.

10.5% of postings close within 7 days. Measured by our own scanner across the market. Crux, Inc. postings stay open a median of 12 days.

Share of postings closed within
  1. 2.1%1 day
  2. 4.3%3 days
  3. 10.5%7 days
  4. 15.9%14 days
  5. 34.1%30 days
This job: posted 35 hours ago

Crux, Inc. median: 12 days open

The posting

Built to set the gold standard for integrated AI infrastructure

Crux AI is a newly formed, U.S.-based integrated AI infrastructure company created to remove the physical and operational constraints on consequential AI ambitions. Crux brings together power, high-density data centers, TPU silicon, networking, orchestration software, and ongoing operations as one integrated system.

Crux is being capitalized to plan every layer together, develop each one to demanding standards, and operate the whole system with efficiency and reliability. That gives hyperscalers, frontier AI labs, sovereign customers, enterprises, and AI-native companies greater freedom to pursue the AI they are here to create.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

You will set the technical direction for the hardest problems at Crux: the ones that sit between layers and belong to no single team. Crux is designing power, facilities, TPU clusters, networking, and software together, which creates problems that have never been solved at this scale or with this degree of integration. Reporting to our CTO, you will define the architecture of record for those cross-cutting systems, invent where the known answers fall short, and take ideas from first principles to production alongside the Compute, Networking, and Security teams. This is an individual contributor seat with company-wide reach: you lead through the quality of your ideas, your designs, and the engineers you raise, not through an org chart.

In this role, you will:

- Own the architecture of record for cross-cutting systems, such as the fleet control plane, network and compute co-design for TPU clusters, multi-tenant isolation, and the telemetry that ties the physical and software layers together.

- Identify the few technical bets that will define Crux's cost, efficiency, and reliability over the next five years, and drive them from design to production, including power-aware scheduling, fabric design, and failure handling at fleet scale.

- Write the designs and the code that matter most. Prototype, measure, and prove ideas before asking teams to build on them.

- Review and raise the bar on architecture across Compute, Networking, Security, and Data Center Engineering, and be the person teams bring their hardest problems to.

- Serve as a senior technical counterpart to Google on the TPU system roadmap, and to the most technically demanding customers on how their workloads should run on Crux.

- Attract and develop exceptional engineers, and connect Crux to the research community through collaborations, publications, and open work where it helps Crux.

SIGNALS OF SUCCESS

After 60 days in this role:

- Gained a complete understanding of the platform architecture, the TPU system design, and the capacity plan of record, and published a written view of the top technical risks and bets.

- Become a trusted reviewer on the most consequential design decisions for the first builds.

- Adapted to a fast-paced environment, triaging appropriately and continuously improving our function.

After 6 months:

- Delivered a design of record for at least one cross-cutting system, with a working prototype and a measured result that changed a decision.

- Raised the quality of design reviews across teams, with clear standards others now use.

- Demonstrated an AI-forward and automated approach to this role: you have built, in a hands-on way, AI-enabled tools for design, simulation, or analysis that engineers use every day.

After 1 year:

- Taken a major technical bet to production, with measurable gains in efficiency, reliability, or time-to-capacity across the fleet.

- Become a reason strong engineers choose Crux, with a visible technical reputation inside and outside the company.

- Set a multi-year technical direction for the platform that the CTO, Google, and engineering leaders are aligned on.

EXPERIENCES, ATTRIBUTES AND MINDSET THAT INDICATE A GOOD MATCH

Experiences

- 15+ years designing and building large-scale networked or distributed systems, with work that has changed how the industry builds infrastructure.

- A record of taking ideas from research or first principles into production, as a founder, startup CTO, or technical lead at a hyperscaler, research lab, or infrastructure company.

- Deep expertise in at least one of networking, distributed systems, operating systems, or systems for AI, and fluency across the others.

Attributes

- You are hands-on. You write designs and code, run the experiments, and read the data yourself. This is a builder's seat, not an advisory one.

- You lead through influence. Engineers and leaders follow your technical judgment because it is consistently right and clearly explained.

- You have a high tolerance for ambiguity. You absorb ambiguity and navigate complexity rather than passing it along.

Mindset

- You are skeptical by default. An elegant design is a hypothesis until it survives production traffic and real failures. You prefer simple, general building blocks to clever special cases.

- You operate as an owner, not an advisor.

- You are AI-agentic first. Fluent with AI agents, or committed to becoming so quickly, you embed them as first principles in how you work, defaulting to agentic workflows before adding headcount or process.

Nice to have (Preferred, not required):

- A PhD in computer science or a related field, with publications at venues such as SIGCOMM, NSDI, OSDI, or SOSP.

- Recognition such as ACM or IEEE Fellow, or test-of-time and best paper awards.

- Experience founding or serving as CTO of an infrastructure startup, including through acquisition.

- Work on software-defined networking, programmable data planes, network function virtualization, or energy-efficient systems.

- Experience with AI accelerator systems, large training clusters, or TPU-scale infrastructure.

Salary Range Information

The annual salary range for this position has been estimated based on market data and other factors. However, a salary higher or lower than this range may be appropriate for a candidate whose qualifications differ meaningfully from those listed in the job description.

About Crux

- We offer generous base, bonus and additional incentive based compensation

- Health, dental, and vision coverage for you and your dependents

- Company-paid life insurance and disability

- Full suite of other optional benefits

- 401(k) Plan with 4% company match

- Hybrid schedule offering four days in-office collaboration paired with one remote workday for focused, individual work

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