Staff HPC Network Architect

About the Position

Staff HPC Network Architect

Join Lambda, The Superintelligence Cloud, as a Staff HPC Network Architect to design high-performance networking solutions for our AI cloud infrastructure. Our mission is to make compute as ubiquitous as electricity and give everyone the power of superintelligence. One person, one GPU.

Location

• San Jose Office (First St)
• San Francisco Office (Fremont St)
• Hybrid Work Environment

Employment Type

• Full Time

Department

• Data Center Business

Compensation

• San Francisco / San Jose: $315K – $420K
• Bellevue: $284K – $378K

Responsibilities

• Architect high-performance networking solutions that power cloud platforms, with a focus on ultra-low-latency and high-bandwidth connectivity.
• Define the network topology and architectural patterns for large-scale GPU clusters, storage backends, and multi-tenant environments.
• Evaluate, benchmark, and select next-generation network technologies (e.g., InfiniBand NDR/XDR, RoCE, 400G-1.6T Ethernet, Ultra Ethernet, ESUN, OCI, etc) to meet AI workload requirements.
• Develop and maintain network architecture standards, reference designs, and scalability roadmaps for multi-site and hybrid environments.
• Partner with compute and storage architects to ensure seamless end-to-end data flow and fault tolerance.
• Guide network automation strategies and tooling to enable efficient provisioning, telemetry, and operational visibility.
• Mentor engineers and cross-functional teams on advanced network concepts, troubleshooting, and architectural best practices.

Requirements

• Proven experience (7+ years) architecting high-performance data center networks, preferably for HPC, AI/ML, or large-scale cloud infrastructure.
• Deep expertise with InfiniBand (HDR/NDR) and advanced Ethernet fabrics, including RoCE and RDMA protocols.
• Strong understanding of data center switching architectures, congestion control (PFC, ECN), QoS, and network virtualization technologies such as VXLAN and EVPN.
• Skilled in designing for low-latency and high-throughput data paths, including GPU-to-GPU and storage traffic optimization.
• Expertise with BGP-based fabric design, including eBGP underlays, MP-BGP EVPN, ECMP, route policy, and convergence.
• Experience with SDN, APIs, automation, and network telemetry.
• Strong optical networking competency, including transceiver technologies, fiber types and topologies, link budgets, breakout architectures, and WDM.
• Experience building resilient, fault-tolerant high-performance network architectures with redundancy, failover, and high availability.
• Excellent communication and leadership skills, capable of influencing technical decisions across diverse teams.
• Strong ownership and can-do attitude, self-starter who feels comfortable working in ambiguity.

Nice to Have

• Hands-on experience with AI workload profiling, collective communication patterns (e.g., NCCL, MPI), and network tuning for distributed training.
• Familiarity with network automation frameworks and telemetry tools.
• Exposure to DPU/SmartNIC technologies, including NVIDIA BlueField, or similar.
• Knowledge of large-scale, multi-site interconnect design, including DWDM or metro/long-haul networking.
• Experience collaborating with hyperscale or enterprise customers on highly customized network designs.

We Offer

• Competitive salary range: $284K - $420K
• Generous cash & equity compensation
• Health, dental, and vision coverage for you and your dependents
• Wellness and commuter stipends for select roles
• 401k Plan with 2% company match (USA employees)
• Flexible paid time off plan

About the Company

Lambda, founded in 2012, is a leader in AI cloud infrastructure serving tens of thousands of customers. Our investors include TWG Global, US Innovative Technology Fund (USIT), Andra Capital, SGW, Andrej Karpathy, ARK Invest, Fincadia Advisors, G Squared, In-Q-Tel (IQT), KHK & Partners, NVIDIA, Pegatron, Supermicro, Wistron, Wiwynn, Gradient Ventures, Mercato Partners, SVB, 1517, and Crescent Cove. We have research papers accepted at top machine learning and graphics conferences, including NeurIPS, ICCV, SIGGRAPH, and TOG.

Lambda is an Equal Opportunity employer. Applicants are considered without regard to race, color, religion, creed, national origin, age, sex, gender, marital status, sexual orientation and identity, genetic information, veteran status, citizenship, or any other factors prohibited by local, state, or federal law.

Join us in building the world's best AI cloud!