About Fluidstack

At Fluidstack were building the infrastructure for abundant intelligence. We partner with top AI labs governments and enterprises - including Mistral Poolside Black Forest Labs Meta and more - to unlock compute at the speed of light.

Were working with urgency to make AGI a reality. As such our team is highly motivated and committed to delivering world-class infrastructure. We treat our customers outcomes as our own taking pride in the systems we build and the trust we earn. If youre motivated by purpose obsessed with excellence and ready to work very hard to accelerate the future of intelligence join us in building whats next.

About the Role

Fluidstack is seeking a Lead Network Engineer to lead our Network Deployment & Integration pillar. This role acts as the team lead youll be hands-on building our first AI datacenter fabrics while establishing the deployment playbook that scales to GW deployments across multiple regions.

This role demands equal parts technical depth and operational leadership. Youll time in the field executing deployments while building the systems processes and team that enable repeatable factory-line pod deployments. Success means handing over production-ready fabrics to operations on schedule while building a deployment organization that can run 3-4 parallel datacenter builds. Youll develop a team of deployment engineers establish handover criteria with cross-functional partners (DC Ops ICT Validation).

Focus

• Deployment Execution: Own hands-on deployment of datacenter networks - front-end fabric back-end fabric BMS management networks. Configure and validate switches coordinate fiber/cabling remediation manage hardware RMAs and drive the first datacenter handover to production.

• Deployment Playbook Development: Build the repeatable deployment process that scales from from double digit Megawatt to Gigawatt deployments. Define pre-deployment checklists turn-up procedures validation gates and handover criteria. Document blockers failure modes and workarounds. Create the operations manual that allows future deployment engineers to execute independently with minimal guidance.

• Cross-Functional Orchestration: Partner with DC Operations (rack/stack power structured cabling) ICT teams (fiber validation insertion loss) Hardware (device staging logistics) and Network Engineering (design review config validation) to drive deployments to completion. Own the critical path - identify blockers within hours escalate decisively and ensure nothing stalls deployment timelines.

• Field Execution Leadership: Lead deployment teams in the field - coordinate travel assign work provide technical guidance during complex turn-ups and ensure quality standards. Build trust with datacenter partners through hands-on problem solving and accountability.

• Handover Excellence: Define and enforce exit criteria for production handovers to Network Operations. Ensure every fabric meets standards for physical layer validation (OTDR traces insertion loss) logical configuration (BGP/EVPN validation reachability tests) observability (monitoring integration alerting) and documentation (as-builts cutsheets runbooks). Own the relationship with Operations to ensure smooth transitions.

About You

• Proven Deployment Leadership: 8 years in network engineering with significant datacenter deployment experience. Youve built large-scale fabrics from the ground up - not just designed them but physically turned them up in the field. You understand the gap between design and reality and you know how to close it through detailed planning and relentless execution.

• AI Fabric Expertise: Deep hands-on experience with modern datacenter fabrics - EVPN/VXLAN BGP CLOS topologies high-radix switching. Ideally youve deployed AI/ML fabrics with RDMA (RoCEv2) lossless Ethernet (PFC ECN) or equivalent high-performance networking. You understand the precision required when every packet matters.

• Player-Coach Mentality: Youre equally comfortable getting hands on and building the team that scales beyond you. Youve mentored and developed engineers before. You know when to lead by example and when to delegate. You see building a team as part of the mission not a distraction from technical work.

• Operational Pragmatism: You thrive in fast-paced ambiguous environments where perfection is the enemy of progress. You make pragmatic tradeoffs between speed and quality. You document as you go. You build processes that are good enough to scale then iterate. You dont wait for perfect tooling - you ship with what you have and improve incrementally.

• Cross-Team Influence: Exceptional at partnering across functions. Youve coordinated complex projects involving hardware vendors datacenter operators cabling contractors and internal engineering teams. You communicate clearly escalate decisively and earn trust through follow-through and accountability.

• Travel Ready: Comfortable with up to 50% travel for extended onsite deployments during datacenter turn-ups. Remote-based but willing to be wherever the work is. You understand that deployment leadership means showing up when its hard.

Nice to Haves

• Hyperscale Background: Experience deploying networks at hyperscale companies (Meta Google Microsoft AWS) or large AI infrastructure providers. Youve seen what good looks like at scale and can adapt those lessons to a fast-growing startup.

• Vendor Ecosystems: Deep familiarity with Arista Juniper or NVIDIA networking platforms. You know the quirks the failure modes and the workarounds. You have relationships with vendor TAC/SE teams and know how to escalate effectively.

• Automation Mindset: Exposure to network automation tools (Ansible Terraform Python) and source-of-truth systems (Netbox DCIM). You may not be writing automation yourself but you understand how to design deployments that are automatable and you partner effectively with automation engineers.

• Project/Program Management: Formal or informal experience with project coordination Gantt charts critical path management and cross-functional program execution. Youve been the person who keeps complex initiatives on track when everyone else is focused on their own domain.

• Startup Experience: Youve built something from scratch before - ideally in a high-growth infrastructure or cloud company. Youre comfortable with rapid context switching evolving requirements and the intensity of early-stage company building.

Salary & Benefits

• Competitive total compensation package (salary equity).

• Retirement or pension plan in line with local norms.

• Health dental and vision insurance.

• Generous PTO policy in line with local norms.
  

The base salary range for this position is $200000 - $300000 per year depending on experience skills qualifications and location. This range represents our good faith estimate of the compensation for this role at the time of posting. Total compensation may also include equity in the form of stock options.

We are committed to pay equity and transparency.

Fluidstack is an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race color religion sex national origin sexual orientation gender identity disability and protected veterans status or any other characteristic protected by law. Fluidstack will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records pursuant to applicable law.

You will receive a confirmation email once your application has successfully been accepted. If there is an error with your submission and you did not receive a confirmation email please email with your resume/CV the role youve applied for and the date you submitted your application-- someone from our recruiting team will be in touch.

Required Experience:

IC