Principal Backend Engineer

Location: Fully remote (EMEA timezone)
Start date: ASAP
Languages: Fluent English required
Industry: Cloud Computing / AI / European Deep-Tech SaaS

About the Role

Blackfluo is recruiting on behalf of a European deep-tech company building the future of cloud infrastructure. Our client is a distributed cloud platform delivering GPU computing for AI/ML workloads, secure file storage, and high-speed data transfer — powered by a sustainable, decentralized architecture that reduces carbon footprint by 77% compared to traditional data centers.

We are seeking a Principal Backend Engineer to join the Compute GPU Team, which owns the core GPU cloud infrastructure — including platform services, billing systems, and the foundational components that power the Compute across multiple regions.

This is a highly technical, impact-driven role focused on cloud-native systems, Kubernetes infrastructure, distributed backend services, and GPU platform engineering. You will play a key role in shaping a next-generation decentralized cloud platform serving AI researchers and enterprise customers.

Autonomy, ownership, and strong architectural judgment are essential.

Your Responsibilities

• Design and build Kubernetes operators and controllers for GPU instance lifecycle management.

• Develop platform services and APIs using Golang and NestJS.

• Architect and implement billing, metering, and usage tracking systems for GPU compute resources.

• Build scalable, distributed backend services for cloud-native infrastructure platforms.

• Contribute to and evolve the GitOps deployment pipeline (FluxCD) to improve reliability and automation.

• Collaborate on system architecture decisions across platform, infrastructure, and product teams.

• Design high-performance, fault-tolerant backend services for multi-region GPU workloads.

• Optimize systems for performance, reliability, observability, and security.

• Participate in full lifecycle development: design, implementation, deployment, and production operations.

• Conduct code reviews, mentor engineers, and raise overall engineering quality.

• Champion best engineering practices and a culture of ownership and craftsmanship.

Required Qualifications

• 4+ years of experience as a Backend / Platform / Infrastructure Engineer in production environments.

• Strong hands-on experience with Kubernetes (operators, CRDs, controllers, or cluster administration).

• Strong proficiency in Golang and/or TypeScript (NestJS).

• Solid experience with distributed systems and cloud-native architecture.

• Experience building scalable backend platforms and infrastructure services.

• Strong understanding of system design, APIs, and service-oriented architectures.

• Experience working in Agile, fast-moving engineering teams.

• Strong communication skills and ability to influence technical direction.

• Demonstrated ability to use AI-assisted development tools effectively for prototyping, debugging, and refactoring while maintaining production-grade standards.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with GPU infrastructure, CUDA/ROCm drivers, or ML serving frameworks.

• Familiarity with KubeVirt, KVM, or virtualization technologies.

• Experience with FluxCD, ArgoCD, or GitOps patterns.

• Background in cloud infrastructure engineering and running production systems at scale.

• Strong observability skills (logging, tracing, monitoring).

• Experience with multi-cloud environments (AWS, Azure, GCP).

The Reality

• This is an early-stage scaling startup — you will wear many hats.

• We move fast and expect an ownership mentality.

• You will be building processes, not following existing ones.

• High autonomy, high impact, high responsibility environment.

What We Offer

• Fully remote work (EMEA timezone preferred).

• Company offsites and team gatherings.

• Strong career growth in a rapidly scaling engineering organization.

• Direct impact on cutting-edge distributed systems and AI infrastructure.

• Work on sustainable cloud technology shaping the future of compute.

Blackfluo.ai is committed to a fair, transparent, and inclusive recruitment process. We do not discriminate based on age, disability, gender, gender identity or expression, marital or civil partner status, pregnancy or maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, or sexual orientation.

In accordance with GDPR, your personal data will be processed lawfully, fairly, and securely, and used solely for recruitment purposes, including sharing it with our client(s) for employment consideration. You may request access, correction, or deletion of your data at any time. We are committed to maintaining the confidentiality and security of your information throughout the recruitment process.