Staff Software Engineer, Infrastructure

Who we are: MasterClass is the streaming platform where the world’s best come together so anyone, anywhere, can access and be inspired by their knowledge and stories. We put you in the room with the creators, thinkers, makers and leaders who have changed the world, so that you can change yours. Members get unprecedented access to 200+ instructors and classes across a wide variety of fields, including Arts & Entertainment, Business, Design & Style, Sports & Gaming, Writing and more. Step into Nas’ recording studio and Gordon Ramsay’s kitchen, and go behind the big screen with James Cameron. Design your career with Elaine Welteroth, get ready to win with Lewis Hamilton, perfect your pitch with Shonda Rhimes and discover your inner negotiator with Chris Voss. We’re a remote-first workforce with collaborative work spaces in San Francisco and Kitchener, Ontario, and employees in several U.S. states. If you’re interested in joining a dynamic, culture-driving company—where learning invaluable skills is all in a day’s work—we invite you to apply. Snapshot of the Role: We’re looking for a Staff Infrastructure Engineer who operates as a technical leader and force multiplier across the platform. This is a senior individual contributor role for someone who designs systems that scale beyond a single team, sets technical direction, and elevates how infrastructure is built and operated across MasterClass. You’ll lead and provide direction for cloud infrastructure, developer platforms, video infrastructure, and emerging AI/ML infrastructure—partnering closely with product engineering, content production, data, and AI teams. This role is ideal for someone who combines deep systems expertise with strong software engineering, thrives in ambiguity, and takes ownership from strategy through execution. This is not a people-management role, but it carries significant technical leadership responsibility. What You Will Do: Set technical direction for core infrastructure systems, balancing reliability, scalability, security, and developer velocity. Design and lead implementation of complex, cross-team infrastructure initiatives (AWS, EKS, CI/CD, shared platforms). Build production-grade software to power infrastructure automation, tooling, and internal platforms. Drive org-wide improvements in observability, incident response, reliability engineering, and cost efficiency. Lead video infrastructure initiatives to evolve video delivery and CDN strategies for global scale and performance. Partner with AI and Data teams to define and build GPU-powered infrastructure, model-serving platforms, and GenAI inference/training workflows. Act as a technical mentor and reviewer, raising the bar for infrastructure design and operational excellence across teams. Lead by example during incidents, postmortems, and critical architectural decisions. About You (Requirements): 10+ years building and operating cloud-native production systems. Strong expertise in: AWS architecture and large-scale cloud operations Kubernetes / EKS (networking, RBAC, Helm, autoscaling, cluster-level debugging) Infrastructure as Code (Terraform preferred) CI/CD and automation (GitHub Actions, Argo, or similar) Proven ability to design and build infrastructure software, not just operate systems. Deep understanding of distributed systems, networking, Linux internals, and cloud security. A track record of driving step-function improvements in reliability, scalability, or developer experience. Strong written and verbal communication skills; able to influence technical decisions across teams. Who You Are You think in systems and leverage, not just tasks. You care deeply about craftsmanship, clarity, and long-term maintainability. You enjoy solving ambiguous, cross-functional technical problems. You’re pragmatic—you optimize for impact over novelty. You raise the bar through mentorship, design reviews, and thoughtful collaboration. You’re energized by both strategic architecture and hands-on implemen