Staff Backend Engineer / Tech Lead Manager

About Nebius

Nebius is pioneering a new era in cloud infrastructure, dedicated to powering the global AI economy. We provide a full-stack AI cloud platform designed to support developers and enterprises from data preparation and model training to production deployment, eliminating the need for costly and complex in-house AI/ML infrastructure. Our ethos, "Built by engineers, for engineers," drives us to solve challenging problems across compute, storage, networking, and applied AI, from large-scale GPU orchestration to inference optimization. As a Nasdaq-listed company (NBIS) headquartered in Amsterdam, Nebius boasts a global presence with R&D centers across Europe, the UK, North America, and Israel, supported by a team of over 1,500 professionals, including hundreds of specialized engineers.

The Role: Lead mk8s Core Team

The Nebius Managed Kubernetes (mk8s) mission is to significantly expand the Nebius cloud platform by offering a highly efficient and low-overhead Kubernetes-native approach to running AI systems. This service, which provides a one-click Kubernetes cluster atop Nebius compute (VMs) and networking services, is projected to scale 10x in 2026, managing customer workloads across tens of thousands of GPU servers in over 10 data centers. As the leader of the mk8s Core team, you will be responsible for the API, the core of the service's control plane, cluster autoscaling, platform integrations, and the deployment of Kubernetes add-ons. This role is hands-on, requiring you to start as an individual contributor to gain deep context before transitioning into managerial responsibilities for a team of 4-8 mid-to-senior engineers.

Responsibilities

• Lead by Example: Dedicate a significant portion of your time to individual contributor work, including writing and reviewing code, leading projects, and participating in on-call rotations, incident mitigation, and post-incident analysis to set the quality standard.
• Team Management: Manage and mentor a team of 4-8 mid-to-senior engineers, providing context, coaching, and regular feedback.
• Technical Vision: Maintain and drive the technical vision for your area of responsibility.
• Product Collaboration: Work closely with the Product Manager and Service Owner to shape product strategy and roadmaps.

Example Outcomes

• Optimize the service control plane to support the creation and management of 20,000 GPU nodes within a single Kubernetes cluster, enabling significant new business contracts.
• Integrate advanced cluster autoscaling solutions (e.g., Karpenter) to enhance resource utilization and facilitate seamless auto-upgrades.
• Develop a Kubernetes-native method for utilizing local disks to mitigate I/O bottlenecks in AI training and inference, boosting efficiency.
• Deliver managed Layer 7 load balancers to decrease operational overhead for customers.

Requirements

• 8+ years of professional software engineering or management experience.
• Excellent knowledge of Golang, or a strong willingness and ability to quickly master it.
• Demonstrated expertise in:
• Managing multi-month technical projects.
• Providing technical leadership to engineers.
• Owning the execution of multi-month technical projects.

Bonus Points

• Experience in team management.
• Experience with Kubernetes administration.
• Experience developing Kubernetes controllers.

Benefits & Perks

• Competitive compensation.
• Opportunities for career growth and continuous learning.
• Flexibility and a sense of ownership.
• A collaborative and innovative work environment.
• The chance to work on impactful AI projects.
• An international setting with highly talented teams.

Working at Nebius

Experience a dynamic environment characterized by bold thinking, constant growth, meaningful impact, trust, and true ownership. Seize the opportunity to shape the future of AI with us.

Equal Opportunity Statement

Nebius is committed to fostering an inclusive and diverse workplace. We provide equal employment opportunities without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, ancestry, age, disability, genetic information, marital status, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by law. Applicants must be authorized to work in the country of application and will be required to prove employment eligibility. Accommodations are available during the application process.