Founding DevOps Engineer

Who are we?

Mission

Altimate AI, founded in 2022 in San Francisco, is revolutionizing enterprise data operations through the power of AI. Our mission is to alleviate the burden on overworked and understaffed enterprise data teams by providing innovative AI-driven solutions that automate and accelerate a wide range of data tasks. Our flagship product, DataPilot, offers advanced data automation capabilities, while our new DataMates technology brings the concept of agentic AI to data operations, acting as virtual teammates for data professionals. Our solutions seamlessly fit into existing tools like VSCode, Git, and Slack, performing tasks ranging from data documentation to performance optimization.

By leveraging a proprietary framework that combines multiple language models and a custom-built knowledge graph, we enable contextually aware AI agents that integrate seamlessly into existing workflows. Our solutions, including ambient AI for continuous monitoring and optimization, are designed to meet the growing demands of data operations, business intelligence, and analytics in an era of ever-increasing data volumes. Used by thousands of users across the world, and backed by prominent investors, we're positioned at the forefront of the AI-powered data engineering revolution.

You can read more about us in a recently published venture beat article.

Team

As a team, we are Silicon Valley veterans who previously created category-defining data and AI products loved by thousands of companies worldwide. We have experienced the journey of a small startup to IPO very closely. We have started on a similar journey again and are backed by prominent advisors and VC firms with multi-billion dollar portfolios.

Role Overview

We are looking for a Founding DevOps Engineer to join our founding team and lead the DevOps initiative at Altimate AI. In this role, you will architect and own our infrastructure strategy from the ground up, ensuring our AI products are delivered reliably and at scale. You will collaborate closely with our software, AI and data engineering teams to build a robust, secure, and high-performance infrastructure. As the first DevOps specialist, you’ll have the opportunity to set the standard for DevOps practices, shape our infrastructure roadmap, and influence the technical direction of the company.

Key Responsibilities

• Infrastructure Architecture: Design, build, and maintain a scalable, secure, and highly available cloud infrastructure to support Altimate AI’s platforms (DataPilot & DataMates).

• CI/CD & Automation: Develop and manage Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment pipelines for smooth and fast software releases. Automate build, test, and deployment processes to minimize errors and downtime.

• Containerization & Orchestration: Lead our containerization efforts and manage container orchestration using Kubernetes (K8s). Ensure efficient deployment, scaling, and management of microservices and AI components in our environment.

• Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Implement and enforce Infrastructure as Code practices using tools like Terraform, Ansible, or Pulumi for consistent and repeatable infrastructure provisioning and configuration.

• Monitoring & Observability: Set up and maintain robust observability systems (monitoring, logging, and alerting) using tools such as Prometheus, Grafana, ELK stack, or Datadog to proactively track system health and performance. Ensure high availability and quick incident response through effective alerting and troubleshooting.

• Security & Compliance: Implement security best practices at every layer of the infrastructure (network, OS, containers, applications) and ensure compliance with industry standards. Conduct regular security audits, vulnerability assessments, and maintain proper access controls and backup/recovery plans.

• Collaboration & Reliability: Work closely with software engineers and data scientists to streamline deployment processes and improve reliability. Advocate for DevOps/SRE best practices (e.g., automation, blameless post-mortems, capacity planning) to increase system resiliency and performance.

• DevOps Leadership: As a founding team member, champion a DevOps culture of automation, quality, and continuous improvement. Document processes, mentor other engineers on DevOps practices, and help lay the foundation for a future DevOps/SRE team as the company grows.

Required Skills & Experience

• Kubernetes Expertise: 4+ Years of hands-on experience deploying, managing, and scaling applications on Kubernetes in production environments.

• Cloud Platforms: Strong experience with major cloud providers (AWS, Google Cloud and/or Azure), including proficiency with cloud services for compute, storage, networking, and managed Kubernetes (EKS, GKE, or AKS).

• CI/CD Tools: Proficiency in setting up and maintaining CI/CD pipelines using modern tools (e.g. Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI/CD, Argo CD) for automated builds, testing, and deployments.

• Infrastructure as Code: Extensive experience with Infrastructure as Code tools such as Terraform, Ansible, or Pulumi to automate infrastructure provisioning and configuration management.

• Scripting & Automation: Strong scripting and automation skills in Bash, Python and/or Go for building tooling and automating tasks.

• Observability: Deep knowledge of observability and logging/monitoring frameworks (Prometheus, Grafana, ELK/EFK stack, Datadog, etc.), with the ability to set up dashboards and alerts for system performance and security monitoring.

• DevOps Leadership: Proven experience leading DevOps initiatives and building out scalable, reliable infrastructure (especially in a startup or greenfield environment). Comfortable making architecture decisions and guiding teams through complex infrastructure challenges.

• Problem-Solving: Excellent troubleshooting skills with experience in performance tuning, failure analysis, and incident management for high-availability, mission-critical systems.

• Communication: Strong verbal and written communication skills. Ability to collaborate with cross-functional teams and clearly explain DevOps concepts and strategies to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Preferred Skills

• Security Focus: Experience implementing security in cloud-native environments (container security, secrets management, IAM policies, network security) and familiarity with compliance frameworks (SOC 2, GDPR, etc.).

• Service Mesh & Networking: Knowledge of advanced Kubernetes networking and service mesh technologies (e.g. Istio, Linkerd) for traffic management, service discovery, and secure inter-service communication.

• Data Infrastructure: Exposure to managing databases, data warehouses, or streaming data pipelines in production. Understanding of how to optimize data storage and retrieval for large-scale data/AI workloads is a plus.

• MLOps & AI Pipelines: Familiarity with machine learning operations or deploying AI/ML models in production is a plus, as it helps in understanding the needs and challenges of our AI-centric products.

• Startup Experience: Previous experience in a startup or high-growth tech environment is beneficial. You should be comfortable with rapid changes, wearing multiple hats, and setting up processes from scratch.

Why Join Us?

• Founding Member Impact: Be a founding member of a fast-growing AI startup and lead a core part of the tech organization. You’ll have significant ownership and your contributions will directly shape our success and culture.

• Cutting-Edge Technology: Work with the latest technologies in cloud, DevOps, and AI. You’ll build and scale infrastructure for state-of-the-art AI products, getting hands-on with advanced tools and architectures.

• Competitive Compensation: We offer a competitive salary and a meaningful equity stake. You’ll share in the company’s growth and success.

• Growth & Learning: This is a high-impact role with plenty of opportunities for professional growth. Attend global conferences, participate in workshops, and continuously learn alongside a talented team. As the company grows, you can grow into a leadership role, hiring and mentoring future team members.

• Innovative Culture: Join a passionate, mission-driven team that values collaboration, transparency, and innovation. You’ll work closely with experienced engineers and AI experts in an environment where your ideas are encouraged and your work makes a real difference.

What We Offer

• Competitive salary and equity

• Access to cutting-edge AI infrastructure and resources

• Regular team off-sites and opportunities to attend and present at leading industry conferences

• Learning budget for AI courses, books, and computing resources

• Dynamic and intellectually stimulating work environment with a team of talented engineers

• Opportunities to shape the direction of the company and leave a lasting impact