Software Engineer - Compute Market
We're building the company which will de-risk the largest infrastructure build-out in history.
When people finance GPU clusters, the datacenters housing them, and the infrastructure powering them, they need "offtake" - meaning someone has signed a contract to lease the cluster for a period of time before its even built.
Financing a GPU cluster is inherently risky, since margins are thin and volumes are huge. Lenders don't want to take on the risk that cluster developers can't repay their loan, and cluster developers really don't want to risk not selling their cluster. As a result, risk is offloaded to the customer using fixed-price long-term contracts.
If you don't mitigate this customer risk, there's a bubble. This isn't SaaS anymore - application layer companies sign multi-year contracts for computer and inference, but sell to customers on monthly subscriptions. If you mess up a purchase, it's game over: a minor shift in your revenue growth rate might mean the difference between profit or bankruptcy. But what if companies could exit their contract by selling it back to the market?
Otherwise, as AI scales, compute only becomes available to folks who can effectively take on that risk. A 2-person startup in a San Francisco Victorian can't realistically sign a 5-year take or pay contract on $100m supercomputers. But they may be able to buy the month of liquidity that someone else sold back.
So that's what we make: a liquid market for GPU offtake.
About the Role
As an engineer working on our compute market, you’ll build software that buys, sells, and prices cutting-edge HPC hardware worth billions of dollars. You’ll be a critical part of the company, working closely together with a small team of extremely competent engineers on systems that move tens of millions of GPU-hours per day.
Projects you might work on include…
Optimizing our surplus-maximizing shape-packing solver
Creating automated strategies for compute providers to sell their clusters
Scaling our quoting APIs to thousands of orders per second
Inventing mechanisms for auctions for a new asset class with unique constraints
Designing a futures contract that allows the market to hedge risk on DC buildouts
This role may be a good fit for you if…
You’re a talented, high-agency engineer who likes to ship fast
You have experience building fault-tolerant systems where correctness is critical
You appreciate the value of extensive testing and good documentation
You’re excited by the rare chance to financialize a new commodity
Are comfortable working in Rust
Bonus points if you…
Have previously worked at or founded a startup
Have built systems that manage other people’s money
Have some background in finance, trading, bespoke marketplaces, or combinatorial optimization
Benefits
Generous equity grant
Team members are offered a competitive salary along with equity in the company
Visa Sponsorships
Yes, we sponsor visas and work permits
Retirement matching
We match 401(k) plans up to 4%
Medical, dental & vision
We offer competitive medical, dental, vision insurance for employees and dependents and cover 100% of premiums
Time off
We offer unlimited paid time off as well as 10+ observed holidays
Parental leave
We offer biological, adoptive, and foster parents paid time off to spend quality time with family
Daily lunch
We cover lunch daily for employees
Unlimited office book budget
You can buy as many books for the office as you want
The San Francisco Compute Company is committed to maintaining a workplace free from discrimination and harassment.
We make employment decisions based on business needs, job requirements, and individual qualifications, without regard to race, color, religion, belief, national origin, social or ethical origin, age, physical, mental, or sensory disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, civil union or domestic partnership status, past or present military service, HIV status, family medical history or genetic information, family or parental status including pregnancy, or any other status protected by law.
We welcome the opportunity to consider qualified applicants with prior arrest or conviction records. Our commitment to diversity includes hiring talented individuals regardless of their criminal history, in accordance with local, state, and federal laws, including San Francisco’s Fair Chance Ordinance and California’s ban-the-box laws.
If you require reasonable accommodation for any reason, please reach out to us at hiring@sfcompute.com
