Senior Director, Compute Engineering

DigitalOcean

Seattle, WA
7 days ago

$261,600–$327,000 Per Year

Highlights

Architectural Leadership & Operational Excellence: Drive the long-term architectural strategy to ensure our Core Cloud layer remains scalable, resilient, and optimized for the unique demands of large-scale agent deployment, focusing on overall operational excellence as we scale. Next-Generation Compute Primitives: Lead the architectural design and delivery of new Compute primitives, including MicroVMs (built on Firecracker), purpose-built for agentic runtimes to ensure distinct isolation profiles that current primitives lack (Droplets).

Numbers & Facts

Location	Seattle, WA
Salary	$261,600–$327,000 Per Year

Description

Dive in and do the best work of your career at DigitalOcean. Journey alongside a strong community of top talent who are relentless in their drive to build the simplest scalable cloud. If you have a growth mindset, naturally like to think big and bold, and are energized by the fast-paced environment of a true industry disruptor, you’ll find your place here. We value winning together—while learning, having fun, and making a profound difference for the dreamers and builders in the world.

We want people who are passionate about building features that you and your peers will love.

At DigitalOcean, we believe the cloud should be a springboard, not a barrier.

As we enter the era of Agentic AI, the complexity of infrastructure shouldn't stand in the way of innovation. We are looking for a visionary leader to own the evolution of our core Compute services — turning high-performance virtualization of VMs and microVMs into the "simple" experience our customers love as they get started, and trust as they scale. This is a rare opportunity to define and drive the strategy and long-term execution for a global ecosystem that empowers millions of digital natives to build the future of AI.

The Role: We are looking for a Strategic Technical Leader to define, own, and lead the end-to-end execution AND operational excellence of our next-generation compute services. Reporting to the VP of Core Cloud Compute & Networking, one of your main goals will be enabling Agentic workloads to run at scale by introducing MicroVMs (built on firecracker) and introducing new Compute primitives for Agentic workloads.

What You’ll Do:

Strategic Roadmap & Execution: Define and own the multi-year technical strategy and delivery for the Compute roadmap to provide customers with a seamless, high-performance environment for agentic and compute workloads.
Next-Generation Compute Primitives: Lead the architectural design and delivery of new Compute primitives, including MicroVMs (built on Firecracker), purpose-built for agentic runtimes to ensure distinct isolation profiles that current primitives lack (Droplets).
Architectural Leadership & Operational Excellence: Drive the long-term architectural strategy to ensure our Core Cloud layer remains scalable, resilient, and optimized for the unique demands of large-scale agent deployment, focusing on overall operational excellence as we scale.
Revenue-Driving Initiatives: Execute product launches and optimization strategies designed for high margins, including:
- Engineering new microVM Droplets SKUs for Agentic Workloads that are high performance and maintain margins.
- Launching Diskless / Remote Boot Droplets that leverage block storage for hardware cost savings and improved hardware failure recovery (e.g., faster recovery for >99.99% uptime HA tier).
- Implementing a new SKU and pricing strategy to productize generations and pass through hardware inflation, ensuring customer upgrades reflect the new hardware cost basis.
Efficiency & Margin Initiatives: Drive substantial efficiency improvements to reclaim margin and prevent CapEx growth.
Strategic Transitions: Oversee the planning and design of new Compute products and skus (such as ARM) for improved power efficiency, higher density, and lower hardware costs, aligning with future roadmaps.
Cross-Functional Partnership: Partner with Product and Marketing leadership to define a strategic roadmap that accelerates the growth of the Compute business and supports the expansion of the AI Agentic Inference business.
Organizational Excellence: Lead the engineering organization, cultivating a high-performance culture that balances rapid AI innovation with the rock-solid reliability of our core services.

What You’ll Bring

Technical Depth: Extensive experience in cloud infrastructure, virtualization, and large-scale distributed compute systems (including KVM/MicroVMs).
AI/ML Fluency: A deep understanding of the infrastructure that AI will require, specifically regarding specialized compute shapes (MicroVMs) and efficient, high-performance runtime environments.
Strategic Execution: Proven ability to define and own high-level business goals (revenue, margin, efficiency) and translate them into successful technical execution and scale-ready products.
Leadership: Experience leading large, geographically distributed engineering teams through periods of significant technical and organizational transition, with a strong focus on operational excellence.

Compensation Range:

$261,600 - $327,000

*This is a hybrid role

JR: 2026-8058

#LI-Hybrid

Why You’ll Like Working for DigitalOcean

We innovate with purpose. You’ll be a part of a cutting-edge technology company with an upward trajectory, who are proud to simplify cloud and AI so builders can spend more time creating software that changes the world. As a member of the team, you will be a Shark who thinks big, bold, and scrappy, like an owner with a bias for action and a powerful sense of responsibility for customers, products, employees, and decisions.
We prioritize career development. At DO, you’ll do the best work of your career. You will work with some of the smartest and most interesting people in the industry. We are a high-performance organization that will always challenge you to think big. Our organizational development team will provide you with resources to ensure you keep growing. We provide employees with reimbursement for relevant conferences, training, and education. All employees have access to LinkedIn Learning's 10,000+ courses to support their continued growth and development.
We care about your well-being. Regardless of your location, we will provide you with a competitive array of benefits to support you from our Employee Assistance Program to Local Employee Meetups to flexible time off policy, to name a few. While the philosophy around our benefits is the same worldwide, specific benefits may vary based on local regulations and preferences.
We reward our employees. The salary range for this position is based on market data, relevant years of experience, and skills. You may qualify for a bonus in addition to base salary; bonus amounts are determined based on company and individual performance. We also provide equity compensation to eligible employees, including equity grants upon hire and the option to participate in our Employee Stock Purchase Program.
DigitalOcean is an equal-opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, ancestry, national origin, caste, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or expression, age, disability, medical condition, pregnancy, genetic makeup, marital status, or military service.

Application Limit: You may apply to a maximum of 3 positions within any 180-day period. This policy promotes better role-candidate matching and encourages thoughtful applications where your qualifications align most strongly.