Director of Network Infrastructure and Capacity
Full-time and Austin, Texas
ABOUT POOLSIDE
In this decade, the world will create Artificial General Intelligence. There will only be a small number of companies who will achieve this. Their ability to stack advantages and pull ahead will define the winners. These companies will move faster than anyone else. They will attract the world's most capable talent. They will be on the forefront of applied research, engineering, infrastructure and deployment at scale. They will continue to scale their training to larger & more capable models. They will be given the right to raise large amounts of capital along their journey to enable this. They will create powerful economic engines. They will obsess over the success of their users and customers.
poolside exists to be this company - to build a world where AI will be the engine behind economically valuable work and scientific progress.
ABOUT THE ROLE
The Director of Network Infrastructure and Capacity will lead the engineering, planning, deployment, and optimization of network systems to support AI-centric datacenter operations. This role requires a forward-looking vision, deep technical expertise, and strong leadership to ensure ultra-low latency, high-bandwidth, and scalable network performance across large-scale AI clusters. The ideal candidate will drive innovation in AI networking fabrics, interconnects, and capacity planning to meet the exponential demands of machine learning and generative AI workloads.
RESPONSIBILITIES
AI Workload-Ready Design
Architect high-throughput, low-latency networking fabrics (e.g., InfiniBand, RoCE, NVLink over Ethernet) to support distributed AI training and inference at scale.
Develop strategies for network scalability to handle massive east-west traffic, model checkpointing, and inter-GPU communication.
Capacity Planning & Optimization
Forecast and plan for exponential growth in compute and storage traffic.
Design capacity models that balance throughput, resiliency, and energy efficiency.
Inference Ingress Bandwidth Management
Engineer external connectivity strategies to support large-scale inference services with high ingress bandwidth demands.
Optimize north-south traffic flows to handle millions of concurrent API calls, streaming requests, and customer-facing inference workloads.
Deploy and manage multi-terabit ingress points, global load balancing, and edge integration to minimize latency for user-facing applications.
Collaborate with service teams to ensure predictable ingress performance for real-time AI/ML products, including LLMs, multimodal inference, and recommendation systems.
Deployment & Operations
Oversee structured cabling, spine-leaf architectures, optical networking, and high-density interconnects optimized for AI clusters.
Ensure uptime, low jitter, and predictable latency across multi-terabit fabrics.
Collaborate with datacenter operations on cooling, power, and space requirements tied to network growth.
Advanced Network Engineering
Integrate software-defined networking (SDN) and network automation for rapid scaling and operational efficiency.
Implement telemetry, real-time observability, and AI-driven monitoring tools to optimize traffic flows.
Stay ahead of new standards in AI networking (e.g., Ethernet AI Consortium, OpenAI fabric blueprints, NVIDIA/AMD interconnects).
Security & Compliance
Ensure robust segmentation, encryption, and compliance for sensitive AI workloads.
Partner with cybersecurity to build zero-trust architectures for AI clusters.
Leadership & Vendor Engagement
Lead and grow a high-performing team of network engineers.
Manage strategic vendor relationships for next-gen switches, optics, and interconnect technologies.
Represent the organization in industry groups and forums shaping the future of AI datacenter networking.
SKILLS & EXPERIENCE
Education: Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Network Engineering, or related field.
Experience:
10+ years in datacenter networking or infrastructure engineering.
3+ years in a leadership role overseeing large-scale, high-performance networking environments.
Direct experience with AI/ML cluster networking strongly preferred.
Technical Skills:
Expertise in routing, switching, and high-performance fabrics (InfiniBand, RoCE, 400/800G Ethernet).
Experience with datacenter networking (Cisco, Juniper, Arista, NVIDIA/Mellanox).
Deep understanding of cloud networking, SDN, and network automation.
Familiarity with optical networking, DWDM, and hyperscale interconnects.
Soft Skills:
Strategic thinker with ability to translate AI growth into network design.
Strong leadership and cross-functional collaboration.
Excellent communication and stakeholder engagement.
Preferred Certifications: CCIE, JNCIE, or equivalent advanced networking certifications.
PROCESS
Intro call with Lance, our VP of Data Center
Interview with Pierre-Yves, Founding Engineer
Interview with Eiso, our Co-CEO
Team fit call with the People team
BENEFITS
Hybrid work & flexible hours
37 days/year of vacation & holidays
Health insurance allowance for you and dependents
Company-provided equipment
Data Retention
Except as otherwise permitted or required by applicable law or regulation, we will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes we collected it for, as required to satisfy any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements, or as necessary to resolve disputes. To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider our statutory obligations, the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorized use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes we process your personal data for, and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means. We specify the retention periods for your personal data in our data retention policy. Under some circumstances we may anonymize your personal data so that it can no longer be associated with you. We reserve the right to use such anonymous and de-identified data for any legitimate business purpose without further notice to you or your consent. If you are offered and accept employment with poolside, the personal data we collected during the application and recruitment process will become part of your employment record, and we may use it in connection with your employment consistent with our employee personal data policies. If you do not become an employee, or, once you are no longer an employee of poolside, we will retain and securely destroy your personal data in accordance with our document retention policy and applicable laws and regulations.
Rights of Access, Correction, Erasure and Objection
It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during the recruitment process. By law you may have the right to request access to, correct, and erase the personal data that we hold about you, or object to the processing of your personal data under certain circumstances. You may also have the right to request that we transfer your personal data to another party. If you want to review, verify, correct, or request erasure of your personal data, object to the processing of your personal data, or request that we transfer a copy of your personal data to another party, please contact us at legal@poolside.ai . Any such communication must be in writing. We may request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and your right to access, and to provide you with the personal data that we hold about you or make your requested changes. Applicable law may allow or require us to refuse to provide you with access to some or all of the personal data that we hold about you, or we may have destroyed, erased, or anonymized your personal data in accordance with our record retention obligations and practices. If we cannot provide you with access to your personal data, we will inform you of the reasons why, subject to any legal or regulatory restrictions.
Right to Withdraw Consent
Where you have provided your consent to the collection, processing, and transfer of your personal data, you may have the legal right to withdraw your consent under certain circumstances. To withdraw your consent, if applicable, contact us at legal@poolside.ai
Changes to this Privacy Notice
We reserve the right to update this Privacy Notice at any time, and we will provide you with a new Privacy Notice when we make any updates. If we would like to use your previously collected personal data for different purposes than those we notified you about at the time of collection, we will provide you with notice and, where required by law, seek your consent, before using your personal data for a new or unrelated purpose. We may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent only where required by applicable law or regulation.
Contact Us
If you have any questions about our processing of your personal data or would like to make an access or other request, please contact us at legal@poolside.ai