Senior Principal Engineer - SambaRack

SambaNova Systems is hiring a Senior Principal Engineer - SambaRack in Bengaluru, India. It pays INR 8900k-INR 10800k a year and Level rates it ; you can apply on SambaNova Systems.

Level's read on this job

On Level's scale, this role is Builds AI ●●●●: the job is building AI systems.
Tools and skills the posting cites include distributed systems, infrastructure and hardware software integration.
Level classifies it as an executive role.
Level lists 71 other open roles at SambaNova Systems.

AI in this role

Drive architecture and software development for next-generation AI infrastructure and rack-scale management platforms.

distributed-systemsinfrastructurehardware-software-integrationsystems-programmingarchitecture

SambaNova is a leader in next-generation AI infrastructure, delivering a full-stack inference platform for customers worldwide. At the core of SambaNova's technology is the RDU (Reconfigurable Dataflow Unit) — a chip built on a dataflow architecture rather than the traditional GPU model. Its decode performance is especially strong for agentic workloads like multi-turn agents, code generation, and long-running applications. RDUs are packaged into SambaRack, rack-scale hardware that lets customers deploy state-of-the-art models with better performance, greater energy efficiency, and faster time to value.

About the team

Join the company that's building the future of AI infrastructure. SambaNova is developing advanced AI systems powered by our RDU (Reconfigurable Dataflow Unit) architecture, combining hardware and software into an integrated platform for large-scale AI deployments.

Our products include SambaRack, a rack-scale AI infrastructure system, and SambaStack, our inference serving platform. Together, they enable customers to deploy and operate production AI environments with performance, reliability, and control.

We are a team of engineers and innovators building next-generation AI infrastructure systems designed for enterprise-scale deployments.

About the role

SambaNova is hiring a Senior Principal Engineer for the SambaRack platform.

You will help design and build the software that enables customers to monitor, control, update, and diagnose SambaRack systems safely and reliably.

This is a hands-on software development role requiring significant technical expertise in systems and infrastructure, focused on building rack-scale hardware management and infrastructure software that operates in direct contact with hardware across diverse production environments, including customer-managed and air-gapped deployments.

As a Senior Principal Engineer on the SambaRack team, you will:

Improve the performance, scalability, and reliability of rack-scale infrastructure and management software
Introduce new features and capabilities for monitoring, control, and diagnostics of SambaRack systems
Design and build components for hardware-software integration points across rack-scale AI systems
Drive technical execution across critical infrastructure initiatives, tightly integrated with hardware

This is a high-impact, high-visibility role at the intersection of:

AI infrastructure
Distributed systems
Hardware-software integration

Responsibilities

Some of your responsibilities will include:

Design and build core software components that enable safe, reliable control, monitoring, and diagnostics for rack-scale AI systems
Lead the technical design and implementation of hardware-software integration points and infrastructure services
Improve observability, telemetry, and diagnostics capabilities across the SambaRack platform
Proactively identify and resolve systemic risks, including performance bottlenecks, reliability gaps, and scaling constraints, before they impact customers
Collaborate closely with Hardware Engineering, DevOps, QA, and Product teams to translate infrastructure requirements into sound technical solutions
Contribute to and help evolve architectural standards, patterns, and best practices across the infrastructure software team
Serve as a technical leader and mentor, fostering engineering excellence and systems-level thinking within the team
Evaluate emerging technologies and industry trends to inform technical approach and platform direction
Design and build new systems, components, and capabilities to solve new and interesting problems in the AI inference space

Required qualifications

8-12 years of software engineering experience
Strong experience building infrastructure, systems, or platform software
Solid programming experience in Go, Rust, Python, or C/C++
Strong understanding of Linux, networking, concurrency, and distributed systems
Experience designing reliable backend or control-plane services for production systems
Experience with hardware management systems such as BMCs, Redfish, IPMI, or OpenBMC
Experience with monitoring, telemetry, or observability systems for infrastructure platforms
Excellent problem-solving skills and attention to detail
Ability to collaborate across cross-functional teams
Knowledge of software development best practices and coding standards

Preferred qualifications

Experience with rack management, server management, or bare-metal infrastructure platforms
Experience with Prometheus, Grafana, and metrics exporter design
Familiarity with fleet management, diagnostics systems, and hardware health monitoring
Experience supporting enterprise or air-gapped deployments
Solid understanding of Kubernetes, Helm Charts, and the Kubernetes ecosystem
Experience designing scalable infrastructure and distributed systems
Familiarity with telemetry systems and infrastructure observability tooling

Base Salary Range:

Base Pay Range₹8,900,000—₹10,800,000 INR

Submission Guidelines
Please note that in order to be considered an applicant for any position at SambaNova Systems, you must submit an application form for each position for which you believe you are qualified.

EEO Policy
SambaNova Systems is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard basis of age (40 and over), color, disability, gender identity, genetic information, marital status, military or veteran status, national origin/ancestry, race, religion, creed, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding), sexual orientation, and any other applicable status protected by federal, state, or local laws.

Benefits Summary for US-Based, Full-Time Employment Positions
SambaNova offers a competitive total rewards package, including the base salary, plus equity and benefits. We cover 95% premium coverage for employee medical insurance, and 77% premium coverage for dependents and offer a Health Savings Account (HSA) with employer contribution. We also offer Dental, Vision, Short/Long term Disability, Basic Life, Voluntary Life, and AD&D insurance plans in addition to Flexible Spending Account (FSA) options like Health Care, Limited Purpose, and Dependent Care. Our library of well-being benefits available to you and your dependents includes a full subscription to Headspace, Gympass+ membership with access to physical gyms, One Medical membership, counseling services with an Employee Assistance Program, and much more.

How we rate this

Senior Principal Engineer - SambaRack at SambaNova Systems rates 85 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Builds AI (AI Level 4 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.

Classification

Builds AI. The job is building AI systems.

●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
●○○○ Little AI0 to 39

Levels come from how often the tools, models and workflows of the role are named in the posting itself. Read the description and count the AI tools, models and workflows it names.

Key facts

Senior Principal Engineer - SambaRack is an open job at SambaNova Systems.
Level rates this role AI Level 4 of 4: Builds AI.
The listed salary is INR 8900k-INR 10800k a year.
The role is based in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.
The job was posted on August 20, 2026.
Seniority: executive.
Applications are handled by SambaNova Systems. Apply on SambaNova Systems

Prepare for this job

Built from this posting and from similar jobs on Level.

Skills and AI tools this role asks for

Distributed SystemsInfrastructureHardware Software IntegrationSystems ProgrammingArchitecture

Questions you could be asked

Tell me about a project where distributed systems was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where infrastructure was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where hardware software integration was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where systems programming was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where architecture was part of your work. What did you do?

Adapt your resume

List these exact terms on your resume: Distributed Systems, Infrastructure, Hardware Software Integration, Systems Programming, and Architecture. An applicant tracking system matches the wording, not the idea.
Attach one line of real, concrete experience to at least one of them. A tool named with nothing behind it rarely survives a human read.
Lead with what you built, trained or shipped. This role is judged on the AI system itself, not the tools around it.

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