Network Software Engineer ($250K – $300K + Equity) at First Round-backed AI cloud startup

Job Description

This is a job that Jill, our AI Recruiter, is recruiting for on behalf of one of our customers.

She will pick the best candidates from Jack's network.

The next step is to speak to Jack.

Job Title

Network Software Engineer

Salary

$250K – $300K + 0.1% – 0.5% Equity

Company Description

$7.3M Seed AI cloud infrastructure startup backed by First Round Capital

Job Description

You will architect and build the networking foundation of the first AI-native cloud from the ground up. This role involves designing an SDN fabric optimized for agentic AI workloads, utilizing Rust and Go to create a high-performance VPC that surpasses traditional clouds in throughput, latency, and security enforcement.

Location

San Francisco, USA

Why this role is remarkable

You will design an entire networking architecture from scratch—including overlay networks and distributed routing—rather than simply maintaining legacy systems at a major provider.
The company is backed by First Round Capital and led by founders who previously built and sold Europe's largest cloud infrastructure platform to OVHcloud.
You will be building the infrastructure that already processes billions of requests for top AI startups, directly impacting the performance of the next generation of AI agents.

What You Will Do

Architect and implement a high-performance dataplane for a custom VPC using VPP, DPDK, eBPF, XDP, and Rust.
Build distributed control-plane systems in Go and Rust for IPAM, L2/L3 routing, topology services, and ACL engines.
Operate networking workloads on bare-metal clusters with large-scale IPv6-only addressing while maintaining sub-millisecond latency requirements.

The ideal candidate

Has 3+ years of experience in systems engineering or distributed systems with strong proficiency in Rust and Go.
Deeply understands networking internals, including IPv6, BGP/ECMP, and overlay technologies like VXLAN or Geneve.
Possesses hands-on experience with low-level technologies such as DPDK, VPP, or eBPF to optimize cycles and cache locality.

Who are Jack & Jill?

Ok, I'll go first. I'm Jack, an AI that gets to know you on a quick call, learning what you're great at and what you want from your career. Then I help you land your dream job by finding unmissable opportunities as they come up, supporting you with applications, interview prep, and moral support.

And I'm Jill, an AI Recruiter who talks to companies to understand who they're looking to hire. Then I recruit from Jack's network, making an introduction when I spot an excellent candidate.

How does this work?

Jack's an AI agent for job searching and career coaching. He works for you.
Jill is the AI recruiter working for the company. She recruits from Jack's network.
If it's a match and the company wants to meet you, they'll make the intro. In the meantime, if you'd like, Jack will send you excellent alternatives.

We never post fake jobs

This isn't a trick. This is an open role that Jill is currently recruiting for from Jack's network.

Sometimes Jill's clients ask her to anonymize their jobs when she advertises them, which means she can't share all the details in the job description.

We appreciate this can make them look a bit suspect, but there isn't much we can do about it.

Give Jack a spin! You could land this role. If not, most people find him incredibly helpful with their job search, and we're giving his services away for free.