Senior Engineering Manager, Data Plane Systems

Crusoe is on a mission to accelerate the abundance of energy and intelligence. As the only vertically integrated AI infrastructure company built from the ground up, we own and operate each layer of the stack — from electrons to tokens — to power the world's most ambitious AI workloads. When you join Crusoe, you join a team that is building the future, faster. We're in the midst of the greatest industrial revolution of our time. The demand for AI compute is boundless, and power is a bottleneck. We're solving that — with an energy-first approach that makes AI infrastructure better for the world and faster for the people innovating with AI. We're looking for problem-solving, opportunity-finding teammates with a sense of urgency, who believe in the scale of our ambition and thrive on a path not fully paved — people who want to grow their careers alongside a team of experts across energy, manufacturing, data center construction, and cloud services. If you want to do the most meaningful work of your career, help our customers and partners advance their AI strategies, and be part of a high-performing team that believes in each other, come build with us at Crusoe. About the Role: Crusoe is seeking a Senior Engineering Manager, Data Plane Systems to lead the team responsible for high-performance SDN data planes across hosts and DPUs. In this hands-on senior leadership role, you will own the architecture, implementation, and production operation of a hardware-accelerated networking stack designed for large-scale GPU workloads. Unlike generic networking manager roles, this position focuses on delivering high-performance packet processing on aggressive timelines, often moving features from commit to production within days. What You'll Be Working On: - Technical Ownership: You will define the roadmap for SDN data plane systems and lead the integration of DPUs (such as NVIDIA BlueField) and hardware accelerators. - Architecture & Optimization: You will oversee the development of Linux kernel networking components, XDP/eBPF data paths, and DPDK-based fast paths while driving the migration of networking functions to hardware offload architectures. - Production Execution: You will lead performance benchmarking, regression prevention, and incident response, ensuring operational excellence within 3-6 month execution cycles. - People Leadership: You will mentor and grow a team of senior and staff-level systems engineers, setting technical standards and fostering a high-performance culture of accountability. - Collaboration: You will partner closely with control-plane teams (OVN/OVS) to optimize throughput and latency for multi-tenant GPU clusters.v What You'll Bring to the Team: - Extensive Experience: At least 10+ years in high-performance networking or systems engineering, with 5-7+ years specifically managing senior/staff-level talent. - Technical Depth: Deep knowledge of Linux networking internals, kernel architecture, and experience with XDP/eBPF, AF_XDP, and DPDK. - Hardware Expertise: Hands-on experience with DPU integration and migrating networking functions to hardware accelerators. - Performance Focus: A strong understanding of low-latency networking, performance tuning, and benchmarking. - Execution Mindset: The ability to resolve complex technical challenges in a fast-moving, execution-heavy environment. Bonus Points - Experience with RDMA/RoCE in GPU environments, P4 programmable networking, or open-source contributions to kernel systems. Benefits: - Competitive compensation - Restricted Stock Units - Paid time off & paid holidays - Comprehensive health, dental & vision insurance - Employer contributions to HSA account - Paid parental leave - Paid life insurance, short-term and long-term disability - Professional development & tuition reimbursement - Mental health & wellness support - Commuter benefits (parking & transit) - Cell phone stipend - 401(k) Retirement plan with company match up to 4% of salary - Volunteer time off Compensa