Staff Software Engineer, Crusoe Energy Systems
Kernel and Virtualization
$185-224k
+ RSUs
Crusoe offers sponsorship
Renewable-powered AI infrastructure
Job no longer available
Renewable-powered AI infrastructure
501-1000 employees
Job no longer available
$185-224k
+ RSUs
Crusoe offers sponsorship
501-1000 employees
Company mission
To accelerate the abundance of energy and intelligence.
Role
Who you are
- 10+ years of experience in systems software engineering, with a focus on both virtualization and kernel-level development
- 3+ years in a technical leadership role managing infrastructure or low-level systems teams
- Deep expertise with virtualization technologies (e.g., KVM, Xen, VMware) and hypervisor development
- Strong knowledge of Linux kernel internals, including memory management, I/O, scheduling, and interrupt handling
- Experience writing performant, reliable device drivers in C, C++, Go, or Rust
- Familiarity with accelerators (GPUs, TPUs) and related technologies like CUDA or ROCm
- Experience with high-performance networking (e.g., InfiniBand, RoCE) and tuning virtualization stacks for HPC workloads
- Proven ability to lead complex projects from concept to production while mentoring others along the way
- Excellent communication skills and ability to drive alignment across diverse engineering teams
What the job involves
- Crusoe is seeking a senior technical leader with deep expertise in both virtualization infrastructure and Linux kernel development to help build and scale our cloud platform optimized for AI and HPC workloads
- This role will oversee the end-to-end design and implementation of high-performance virtualization layers, while also driving the development of kernel-level software that interfaces closely with hardware accelerators and hypervisors
- You will lead a cross-functional team focused on building robust, scalable, and efficient compute infrastructure — combining deep systems-level engineering with cloud-native scalability
- Your leadership will directly shape the performance, reliability, and functionality of Crusoe’s cloud compute offerings
- Design and implement advanced virtualization technologies tailored for GPU-accelerated AI and HPC workloads
- Make architectural decisions on hypervisors, device emulation, and hardware-software integration (e.g., GPUs, TPUs, networking)
- Optimize virtualization stacks for performance, scalability, and low latency across cloud-native and bare-metal configurations
- Develop and maintain Linux kernel modules, including device drivers, to support new hardware and ensure reliable kernel performance
- Optimize kernel-level performance (memory management, scheduling, I/O) for high-throughput and low-latency workloads
- Focus on integration between kernel, hypervisors, and hardware accelerators to support advanced compute use cases
- Perform deep-dive debugging and root-cause analysis of issues at the OS, hypervisor, and hardware level
- Collaborate closely with hardware engineers to understand IP block functionality and ensure seamless software integration
- Drive system performance improvements through kernel and virtualization optimizations
- Lead, mentor, and grow a high-performing team of engineers across kernel, systems, and virtualization domains
- Collaborate with product, infrastructure, hardware, and AI/ML teams to align technical direction with business goals
- Contribute to a culture of engineering excellence through technical mentorship, code/design reviews, and cross-functional communication
Our take
Crusoe is tackling one of the biggest challenges facing the digital age: the enormous energy demand of data centres and AI infrastructure. As AI models grow more powerful, they require immense computing power (and therefor electricity) to train and operate. This surge in energy use has put some pressure on power grids, driven up costs, and raised environmental concerns. Crusoe is on a mission to make this process more sustainable by finding smarter, cleaner, and more efficient ways to power the data centres that drive modern computing.
The company started out by putting wasted energy to work. Originally known as Crusoe Energy, it captured natural gas that would otherwise be burned off ("flared") at remote oil sites and used it to power modular data centres. Today, Crusoe has evolved into a major player in AI infrastructure, designing and operating large-scale data centres near renewable or stranded energy sources. It's now one of a handful of "neocloud" companies (next-generation cloud providers focused on flexible, efficient computing for AI workloads). And its facilities are helping tech giants like OpenAI handle the massive computing requirements of training advanced AI models.
Recently, Crusoe has attracted some huge investor attention, tripling its valuation to over $10B and raising $1.4B in its latest funding round. It's building OpenAI's first major US data centre campus and even experimenting with bold new frontiers. In partnership with Starcloud, Crusoe plans to deploy the world's first space-based cloud computing infrastructure, powered by solar energy and orbiting the Earth by 2027. If successful, this could redefine how and where computing happens, opening up a cleaner, virtually limitless source of energy for AI's next generation.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
31% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 6 rounds)
Oct 2025
$1.4bn
SERIES E
Dec 2024
$600m
SERIES D
Total funding: $2.5bn
Company benefits
- Health & wellbeing: Comprehensive health benefits designed to support your overall wellness
- Time away: Paid time off for vacations, family bonding, and unexpected needs
- 401(k) match: Build your financial future with our 401(k) matching program
- Mental wellness: Resources and support for your emotional wellbeing and navigating life's challenges
Company HQ
LoDo, Denver, CO
Leadership
Cully Cavness
(Co-Founder, COO & President)Began their career as an Energy Infrastructure Research Fellow before spending 3 years as a Business Development Manager at Recurrent Engineering and serving as CFO of Sword & Plough. They left their role as VP of Highlands Natural Resources to co-found Crusoe Energy Systems.
Chase Lochmiller
(Co-Founder & CEO)Prior to co-founding Crusoe in 2018, Chase was a General Partner at Polychain Capital, a Quantitative Trade at Jump Trading Group, and a Managing Director of Algorithmic Trading at KCG Holdings.
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