Senior Software Engineer, Infrastructure
Ironflow AI· startup· Computer Software· Mar 25, 2026 · 7mo agoPosted 216 days ago
San Diego
Hybrid
Full-time
Senior
$160K–$220K est.
5+ years exp
Before you apply
Ghost Signal:
Open since March 25, 2026 — 216 days, and still accepting applications.
Job description
About Ironflow AI
About Ironflow AI
Our mission is simple: to build software to help people build extraordinary things.
We are building an AI-native ERP for aerospace, defense, and advanced manufacturing. Purchasing, inventory, planning, manufacturing, finance, and accounting: the core systems that determine whether companies can actually build and deliver.
Much of the industrial base still runs on software architectures designed decades ago. We think that is now a strategic problem.
Our mission is bigger than better software. If the United States and its allies need to build more ships, aircraft, missiles, drones, engines, satellites, and everything behind them, the companies doing that work need radically better systems.
We are building Ironflow around five values that define how we work: hard work, excellence, kindness, creativity, and teamwork. We put in the effort and follow through. We take pride in our work and keep raising the bar. We treat people with care and respect. We explore possibilities and find better ways. And we help each other succeed while taking responsibility for the shared outcome.
We are veterans, engineers, and operators who have lived the limitations of legacy systems firsthand. We are building the software we wish existed.
Why This Role Matters
We're looking for a Senior Software Engineer specializing in Infrastructure who is excited about building and scaling the platform that powers our product. You'll own the reliability, performance, and security of our infrastructure while working closely with product engineers to ship features faster.
This is a high-ownership role at an early-stage company. The role has broad scope by design: you'll own the full infrastructure surface, from cluster operations to developer experience. We operate on AWS GovCloud in an environment purpose-built for ITAR and CUI compliance, which means the infrastructure decisions you make carry real regulatory weight. You won't be maintaining someone else's platform: you'll be the person who built it. If you want broad ownership, a direct line to product impact, and the technical challenge of building compliance-grade infrastructure from scratch, this role is for you.
What You’ll Own
Infrastructure & Cloud
Design, build, and maintain production infrastructure on AWS (EKS, RDS, ECR, VPC, IAM, Secrets Manager, etc.).
Develop and manage our Kubernetes clusters: deploy workloads, tune Karpenter node autoscaling, maintain Helm charts, and keep clusters healthy.
Own and extend our GitOps deployment pipeline: GitHub Actions for CI/CD, ArgoCD for continuous delivery, and Helm for packaging.
Manage supporting cluster operators including Envoy Gateway, External DNS, cert-manager, Fluent Bit, and the AWS Load Balancer Controller.
Reliability & Observability
Own and improve our observability stack—Grafana for dashboards, Loki for log aggregation, Tempo for distributed tracing, and Prometheus for metrics.
Support multi-environment reliability across dev, stage, and production GovCloud accounts.
Improve system resilience through load testing (Locust), E2E testing (Playwright/Cucumber), and thoughtful capacity planning.
Application Development
Contribute to backend services (FastAPI, SQLAlchemy) in Python and TypeScript.
Work alongside product engineers as a first-class contributor, making architecture decisions that balance speed, cost, and reliability.
Build developer experience tooling: local dev environments, CI pipeline improvements, and automated testing scaffolds that make the whole team faster.
Support and extend Temporal-based workflow orchestration for background processing.
Security & Compliance
Implement least-privilege IAM policies, IRSA (IAM Roles for Service Accounts), and network segmentation in a GovCloud environment.
Manage secrets through AWS Secrets Manager and the External Secrets Operator with automated rotation.
Maintain TLS automation via cert-manager and OIDC authentication flows.
Enable SOC2, CMMC, and FedRAMP compliance activities: GRC platform integration, audit logging pipelines, FIPS-validated endpoint configuration, system boundary documentation, and evidence collection for third-party assessments.
What You Bring
5+ years of professional experience in infrastructure, DevOps, SRE, or platform engineering.
Deep hands-on experience with AWS services in production (EKS, IAM, Secrets Manager, ECR, RDS). Experience with or strong working knowledge of AWS GovCloud is a significant plus.
Strong Kubernetes expertise: you've operated clusters, debugged networking issues, managed Helm charts, and tuned workloads.
Proficiency in Python and/or TypeScript with a genuine interest in writing application code alongside infrastructure work.
Experience with GitOps workflows: ArgoCD, GitHub Actions, and Helm-based deployments.
Solid understanding of networking fundamentals (DNS, load balancing, TLS, Kubernetes Gateway API).
Comfort with Linux systems administration and shell scripting.
Familiarity with compliance-driven infrastructure: audit logging, access controls, and evidence collection for frameworks like CMMC, FedRAMP, and SOC 2.
A collaborative, low-ego mindset: you thrive in small, fast-moving teams.
Nice to Have
Experience with Envoy Gateway or the Kubernetes Gateway API.
Background in PostgreSQL administration and schema-based multi-tenancy.
Familiarity with the Grafana observability stack (Loki, Tempo, Prometheus).
Experience with Karpenter for node autoscaling or cost optimization strategies for cloud spend.
Experience with Temporal for workflow orchestration.
Experience in a startup or high-growth environment where you wore many hats.
How We Work
Everyone at Ironflow moves fast, solves real problems, and holds a high bar for craft. We expect you to lead, not just follow, and to build systems that stand up to real-world complexity while staying clean and maintainable.
Application prep
Use the role’s language and application details while tailoring your materials.
Keywords to mirror
aiawskubernetesci/cdpythontypescriptapi
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