Staff Storage Engineer at Crusoe building petabyte-scale storage infrastructure for AI workloads. Lead architect of data layer for vertically integrated AI cloud, managing performance optimization, vendor strategy, and enterprise storage systems.
Crusoe is on a mission to accelerate the abundance of energy and intelligence. As the only vertically integrated AI infrastructure company built from the ground up, we own and operate each layer of the stack — from electrons to tokens — to power the world's most ambitious AI workloads. When you join Crusoe, you join a team that is building the future, faster.
We're in the midst of the greatest industrial revolution of our time. The demand for AI compute is boundless, and power is a bottleneck. We're solving that — with an energy-first approach that makes AI infrastructure better for the world and faster for the people innovating with AI.
We're looking for problem-solving, opportunity-finding teammates with a sense of urgency, who believe in the scale of our ambition and thrive on a path not fully paved — people who want to grow their careers alongside a team of experts across energy, manufacturing, data center construction, and cloud services.
If you want to do the most meaningful work of your career, help our customers and partners advance their AI strategies, and be part of a high-performing team that believes in each other, come build with us at Crusoe.
About the Role:
At Crusoe, we are on a mission to align the future of computing with the future of the climate. As a Staff Storage Engineer on the Storage Team, you will be the lead architect and operator of the data layer for our vertically integrated AI cloud. This team sits at the critical intersection of massive-scale data ingress/egress and high-performance GPU workloads, ensuring that our sustainable clusters deliver world-class data throughput for the world’s most demanding AI and HPC use cases.
You will manage the end-to-end lifecycle of our world-wide storage environment from initial bring-up and configuration to high-level vendor strategy. In this role, you will have a direct hand in shaping our enterprise infrastructure, collaborating on vendor RFPs and reviewing responses while working directly to influence vendor product roadmaps. Your work ensures that Fortune 500 companies and leading AI researchers have the performant, reliable, and sustainable storage needed to power the AI revolution.
What You'll Be Working On:
Performance Analysis & Optimization: Evaluate performance of block, file, and object storage systems across diverse workloads. Identify bottlenecks at the hardware, firmware, OS, and application layers. Develop and execute performance test plans, benchmarks, and stress tests. Tune storage stacks (I/O schedulers, caching layers, drivers, protocols) to achieve target KPIs.
Validation & Testing: Design and execute Proof of Concept (PoC) exercises to take new arrays through their paces. You will validate new vendor software releases in staging environments before rolling them out to our global production footprint.
Full-Stack Administration: Own the initial bring-up, configuration, and ongoing performance tuning of large enterprise arrays. You will manage the lifecycle of the storage OS, ensuring all systems are optimized for AI training and inference I/O patterns.
Enterprise Infrastructure Building: Collaborate with the Compute and Networking teams to build a seamless "gold standard" cloud infrastructure. You will design cloud-scale storage systems that can excel in high-concurrency, high-throughput environments.
Storage Strategy & Selection: Lead the technical evaluation of new storage technologies. You will be responsible for authoring RFPs, reviewing vendor responses, and leading "down selection" processes to ensure we invest in the best hardware for AI workloads.
Vendor Roadmap Influence: Serve as the primary technical point of contact for storage partners (such as VAST Data, Pure Storage). You will sit with their engineering teams to provide feedback on bugs, missing features, and prioritize Crusoe’s requirements on their development roadmaps.
Cross‑Functional Collaboration: Work closely with service engineering and architecture teams to influence design decisions. Provide performance guidance during feature development and release cycles. Communicate findings to both technical and non‑technical stakeholders.
What You'll Bring to the Team:
10+ years of experience in storage systems administration with a heavy focus on petabyte-scale, on-premise data environments.
Strong understanding of storage architectures (block, file, object) and I/O paths.
Hands‑on experience with performance benchmarking and observability tools (FIO, ElBencho, blktrace, nvme-cli,nfs-gaze, eBPF, etc.).
Experience with SSDs, NVMe, RAID, caching, or distributed storage systems.
Deep familiarity with enterprise flash arrays and distributed file systems. Specific experience with VAST Data, Pure Storage (Everpure) is highly preferred.
Proficiency with scripting (Python, Go or bash) to automate array management and monitoring.
Ability to analyze complex performance data and present clear conclusions.
Proven ability to lead the authoring of technical requirements, evaluating RFP responses and managing complex vendor relationships.
Experience with system design for specific I/O use cases (AI training/inference) and a disciplined approach to testing and validating new vendor releases.
A genuine interest in Crusoe’s mission to reduce the environmental impact of the AI revolution through sustainable infrastructure.
Bonus Points
Experience with RDMA, iSCSI, NVME-oF, RoCEv2 or InfiniBand networking as it relates to high-performance storage.
Previous experience at a major Cloud Service Provider (CSP) or a high-scale AI infrastructure company.
Familiarity with distributed storage systems (Ceph, Lustre, Gluster, etc.).
Benefits:
Competitive compensation and equity packages
Restricted Stock Units
Paid time off, paid holidays & leave of absence programs
Comprehensive health, dental & vision insurance
Employer contributions to HSA account
Paid parental leave
Paid life insurance, short-term and long-term disability
Professional development & tuition reimbursement
Mental health & wellness support
Commuter benefits (parking & transit)
Cell phone stipend
401(k) Retirement plan with company match up to 4% of salary
Volunteer time off
Global travel insurance & emergency assistance
Daily meals allowance
Additional perks & programs specific to location
Compensation Range:
$180,000 - $225,000 + Bonus. Restricted Stock Units are included in all offers. Compensation is determined by the applicant’s education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities, as well as internal equity and alignment with market data.
Crusoe is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, disability, genetic information, pregnancy, citizenship, marital status, sex/gender, sexual preference/ orientation, gender identity, age, veteran status, national origin, or any other status protected by law or regulation.