Staff Software Engineer, Cluster Orch (SUNK)

Role details

CoreWeave is The Essential Cloud for AI™. Built for pioneers by pioneers, CoreWeave delivers a platform of technology, tools, and teams that enables innovators to build and scale AI with confidence. Trusted by leading AI labs, startups, and global enterprises, CoreWeave combines superior infrastructure performance with deep technical expertise to accelerate breakthroughs and turn compute into capability. Founded in 2017, CoreWeave became a publicly traded company (Nasdaq: CRWV) in March 2025. Learn more at www.coreweave.com . About the role As part of the Cluster Orchestration team, you will play a key role in advancing CoreWeave’s orchestration platform including SUNK (Slurm on Kubernetes) and beyond, our Kubernetes-native foundation that powers AI training and inference at scale. This is an opportunity to help shape one of the most critical layers of the AI cloud: ensuring workloads run seamlessly, reliably, and efficiently across massive GPU clusters. By building the systems that eliminate infrastructure bottlenecks and create new orchestration capabilities, you will directly empower customers to innovate faster and push the boundaries of what’s possible with AI. What You’ll Do As a Staff Engineer (IC5), you will be a technical leader shaping the long-term strategy for CoreWeave’s orchestration platform. You’ll define architectural direction, own critical parts of the orchestration platform and other managed services, and drive cross-org initiatives in scheduling, quota enforcement, and scaling at hyperscale. You’ll mentor senior engineers, establish org-wide best practices in reliability and observability, and ensure CoreWeave’s orchestration layer evolves to meet the demands of next-generation AI workloads. Who You Are 8–12 years of professional software engineering experience. Proven track record designing and operating large-scale distributed systems in production. Deep expertise in Slurm/Kubernetes internals and cloud-native development. Advanced proficiency in Go and distributed systems design. Experience setting technical direction and influencing cross-team architecture. Ability to mentor senior engineers and elevate organizational standards. Preferred Familiarity with orchestration and workflow technologies such as Ray, Kubeflow, Kueue, Istio, Knative, or Argo Workflows Experience with distributed workloads, GPU-based applications, or ML pipelines. Knowledge of scheduling concepts like quota enforcement, pre-emption, and scaling strategies. Exposure to reliability practices including SLOs, alarms, and post-incident reviews. Experience with AI infrastructure and workloads (ML training, inference, or HPC). Wondering if you’re a good fit? You love defining long-term architecture for systems at global scale. You’re curious about orchestration beyond SUNK and how to evolve it for next-generation AI. You’re an expert at mentorship, architecture, and operational excellence across teams. You thrive on solving problems that balance cost, performance, and reliability in high-demand environments. The base salary range for this role is $207,000 to $275,000. The starting salary will be determined based on job-related knowledge, skills, experience, and market location. We strive for both market alignment and internal equity when determining compensation. In addition to base salary, our total rewards package includes a discretionary bonus, equity awards, and a comprehensive benefits program (all based on eligibility). What We Offer The range we’ve posted represents the typical compensation range for this role. To determine actual compensation, we review the market rate for each candidate which can include a variety of factors. These include qualifications, experience, interview performance, and location. In addition to a competitive salary, we offer a variety of benefits to support your needs. The benefits below reflect our US-based offerings for full-time employees; for roles in other locations, benefits vary and are shared during the hiring process. These include: Medical, dental, and vision insurance - 100% paid for by CoreWeave Company-paid Life Insurance Voluntary supplemental life insurance Short and long-term disability insurance Flexible Spending Account Health Savings Account Tuition Reimbursement Ability to Participate in Employee Stock Purchase Program (ESPP) Mental Wellness Benefits through Spring Health Family-Forming support provided by Carrot Paid Parental Leave Flexible, full-service childcare support with Kinside 401(k) with a generous employer match Flexible PTO Catered lunch each day in our office and data center locations A casual work environment A work culture focused on innovative disruption California Applicants California Consumer Privacy Act Equal Opportunity & Accommodations CoreWeave is an equal opportunity employer, committed to fostering an inclusive and supportive workplace. All qualified applicants and candidates will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran status, or genetic information. As part of this commitment and consistent with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) , CoreWeave will ensure that qualified applicants and candidates with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodations for the hiring process, unless such accommodation would cause an undue hardship. If reasonable accommodation is needed, please contact: careers@coreweave.com . Export Control Compliance This position requires access to export controlled information. To conform to U.S. Government export regulations applicable to that information, applicant must either be (A) a U.S. person, defined as a (i) U.S. citizen or national, (ii) U.S. lawful permanent resident (green card holder), (iii) refugee under 8 U.S.C. § 1157, or (iv) asylee under 8 U.S.C. § 1158, (B) eligible to access the export controlled information without a required export authorization, or (C) e