We want people who are passionate about optimizing and troubleshooting data center hardware at mega-scale so our customers don't have to worry!
We are looking for an entry-level hardware technologist with experience testing and deploying firmware to server hardware at scale. Reporting to the Manager of Infra::Machines::Design, the Firmware Qualification Engineer will qualify and deploy firmware packages across DigitalOcean products and components and join a team of engineers who have already paved the way for the many tens of thousands of servers in our infrastructure. The ideal candidate will be eager to face new challenges as DigitalOcean continues to scale its data center footprint and explore new technologies to bring to our customers.
What You'll Be Doing:- Work with vendors and internal peer teams on qualifying, onboarding, and delivering new firmware to the DigitalOcean ecosystem
- Act as Tier 3 escalation on-call for triage, investigation, and resolution of system firmware issues in the DigitalOcean fleet (both customer-facing and internal)
- Participate in 24/7 on-call rotation with other members of the teamImprove existing firmware and hardware configuration automation/validation, for both hardware platforms and components (such as NIC, Storage and BMC)
- Engage with hardware vendors about new automation features and existing bugsHelp with development of tooling and associated runbooks to address gaps in operational capabilities around hardware and firmware operations
- Coordinate with Ops teams on monitoring thresholds, failure modes and alertingAssist in troubleshooting causes of failures and work to prevent them in the futureย
- Raise the quality bar in the delivery of our cloud infrastructure by identifying industry best practices and working to adopt them
What We'll Expect From You:
- Technical Degree (BS Computer Science/Engineering) or equivalent practical experience
- Strong understanding of x86 server hardware architecture and subsystems.
- Ideally, you've worked with non-x86 hardware too!Demonstrated professional proficiency in configuration management best-practices (we use Ansible and Chef)
- Experience automating server firmware components at large-scale using industry-standard tooling (Redfish, IPMI, etc) including a deep understanding of benchmarking, automating test frameworks, and process automation in general
- Practical knowledge of PXE boot, UEFI, Linux/OS boot, AMI/OEM BIOS distributions, OpenBMC/AMI/OEM BMC implementations, RAID and other storage resiliency technologies, and the full Network stack- from NIC firmware to TCP/IPAdept at Linux (or Unix) operating systems. You'll be spending a lot of time working in one!
- Comfortable with version control systems (we use Git) and proficient in at least one programming language (such as Python or Go) Ability to participate in 24/7 on-call rotation with other members of the team
- Excellent communication skills, both within the team and with the broader company
- Have an insatiable passion for hardware, both new and oldย
Compensation Range:ย *This is a hybrid role
JR: 2026-7606
#LI-Hybrid