Principal Systems Engineer - APAC

About Nscale

Nscale is taking on the hyperscalers by building a vertically integrated cloud built for AI. We own the data centres, software, and applications that power today's AI stack using sustainable technology solutions. We thrive on a culture of relentless innovation, ownership, and accountability, where every team member takes pride in their work and drives it with excellence and urgency.

As a Nscaler, you'll build trust through openness and transparency, where everyone is inspired to do their best work. Collaboration is key, and we work together swiftly and respectfully, embracing adaptability and resilience in all we do.

Principal Systems Engineer

We are looking for a Principal Systems Engineer, based in Singapore, to lead the architecture, design, and development of the systems software that automates the management of our bare-metal GPU clusters across Asia-Pacific. This is a highly technical leadership role for an engineer who has built bare-metal clouds and wants to apply that experience to AI infrastructure at significant scale.

You will operate at the intersection of systems engineering and back-end software, building scalable, fault-tolerant control-plane services that provision, validate, operate, and remediate thousands of GPU nodes and the fabrics that connect them. You will partner closely with platform, networking, hardware, data centre, and deployment teams across APAC, Europe, and the US.

As a Principal Engineer, you will serve as a technical authority across compute, network, and control-plane domains, setting engineering standards, mentoring senior engineers, and guiding critical architectural decisions as we build out our APAC systems and network engineering organisation.

What You'll Be Doing

• Lead the architecture, design, and development of systems software that automates the full lifecycle of bare-metal GPU infrastructure (1000+ nodes), from rack arrival through production and remediation
• Design scalable, fault-tolerant control-plane services for inventory, provisioning, firmware and configuration management, health checking, and automated remediation
• Own complex architectural decisions involving scalability, fault tolerance, state management, data consistency, and performance optimisation
• Define how hosts are discovered, provisioned, and managed at scale through out-of-band management (BMC, Redfish, IPMI) and automated OS deployment
• Define cluster bringup, validation, and acceptance standards across compute, storage, and InfiniBand, RoCE, and Ethernet fabrics
• Partner with platform, networking, hardware, data centre, and deployment teams to bring new APAC capacity online predictably and repeatably
• Diagnose and resolve complex issues spanning hardware, firmware, kernel, networking, and software layers
• Drive operational excellence through automation, observability, and reliability engineering
• Establish engineering best practices, design standards, and operational processes for systems software development
• Mentor senior and staff-level engineers, acting as a force multiplier across the APAC organisation
• Lead technical reviews and guide long-term infrastructure roadmap planning for the region, working across time zones with Europe and the US

About You

• Masters/Bachelor Degree in Computer Science or a related technical field (or equivalent practical experience)
• 10+ years of experience building and operating large-scale production infrastructure
• Proven experience building a bare-metal cloud or bare-metal fleet management platform, including provisioning, lifecycle, and remediation automation
• Deep expertise in Linux, server hardware architecture, and computer networking
• Strong background in distributed systems, including fault tolerance, state management, consistency, and concurrency
• Strong proficiency in systems and back-end programming languages such as Go, Python, Rust, or C/C++
• Hands-on experience with out-of-band management (BMC, IPMI, Redfish) and automated OS provisioning at scale
• Demonstrated technical leadership across complex, cross-functional engineering initiatives
• Strong system design, problem-solving, and communication skills
• Ability to travel up to 50% of the time across the APAC region
• Participation in on-call rotations supporting production infrastructure

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with GPU server platforms (e.g. NVIDIA HGX/DGX) and GPU cluster bringup at scale
• Experience with high-performance networking technologies such as InfiniBand and RoCE
• Familiarity with data centre network design, such as leaf-spine fabrics, BGP, and EVPN-VXLAN
• Experience with bare-metal provisioning and fleet tools such as OpenStack Ironic, MAAS, Tinkerbell, or Metal3
• Experience managing firmware and BIOS lifecycle across large server fleets
• Deep expertise in Linux internals and performance tuning, including PCIe, NUMA, and NICs
• Experience with control-plane datastores and caches such as PostgreSQL, MySQL, etcd, or Redis
• Experience with workflow orchestration and schedulers such as Temporal, Kubernetes, or Slurm
• Experience with GPU cluster validation and benchmarking, such as NCCL tests, DCGM, and burn-in
• Experience delivering infrastructure across multiple countries in the APAC region

In All We Do, Our Core Values Guide Us

Relentless Innovation

At Nscale, we constantly push the boundaries of innovation, embracing creative risks to shape the future. Our aim is to deliver products that not only meet but exceed today’s expectations, setting new standards for tomorrow.

Ownership and Accountability

Every Nscaler is fully accountable for their work, driving it with excellence and urgency. We set high standards, ensuring that our contributions are not just good but exceptional.

Openness and Transparency

We believe trust and transparency are key to our success. We maintain open communication within our teams and with stakeholders, sharing both successes and challenges. Our open-source approach allows customers to explore our technology, building trust and ensuring our solutions are both innovative, secure, and reliable.

Customer-Centric Focus

Our customers are central to our mission, and we are committed to delivering impactful solutions that drive real-world success. We focus on deeply understanding their needs and challenges, striving to exceed expectations in both product quality and service.

Sustainability

We are dedicated to considering the long-term environmental and societal impacts of our technologies. By integrating sustainability into our operations and product development, we ensure that our innovations are both effective and responsible, contributing positively to the world around us.

Full-Speed Collaboration

Collaboration at Nscale is fast, efficient, and respectful. We work together seamlessly, with clear communication and mutual respect, ensuring our shared goals are met with high standards and impactful outcomes.

Equal Opportunities Statement

We strongly encourage applications from people of colour, the LGBTQ+ community, people with disabilities, neurodivergent people, parents, carers, and people from lower socio-economic backgrounds.

If there’s anything we can do to accommodate your specific situation, please let us know.

The responsibilities outlined in this job description are not exhaustive and are intended to provide a general overview of the position. The employee may be required to perform additional duties, tasks, and responsibilities as assigned by management, consistent with the skills and qualifications required for the role.

For information on how Nscale handles candidate personal data, please see our Employee & Candidate Privacy Notice: Here.

For information on how Nscale handles candidate personal data, please see our Employee & Candidate Privacy Notice: Here.

Nscale does not accept unsolicited candidate submissions from recruitment agencies.