Staff Software Engineer - Observability

Cerebras Systems
Sunnyvale, CA
Hybrid

Who this role is best for

Geared toward candidates comfortable with building telemetry pipelines and debugging distributed systems, this role favors engineers with backend or systems software experience and a focus on observability in high-performance environments. It is based in Sunnyvale, CA, and emphasizes collaboration across engineering teams.

Best fit for

  • Candidates with experience in metrics, logs, and distributed tracing in production systems
    — “Build and maintain telemetry pipelines for metrics, logs, and traces at scale”
  • Engineers who have shaped internal platforms or shared libraries for observability
    — “Building internal developer platforms or shared libraries”
  • Individuals with a background in distributed systems and observability tooling
    — “You’ll design and implement metrics, logging, tracing, and alerting infrastructure that enables fast debugging, high reliability, and confident operation of complex distributed systems”

Things to consider

  • Candidates must be prepared to work at the intersection of platform engineering and reliability.
    — “This role sits at the intersection of platform engineering, distributed systems, and reliability.”

How to stand out

  • Demonstrate a track record of reducing MTTR through observability systems.
    — “Reduce MTTR by enabling fast root-cause analysis during incidents”
  • Emphasize work on observability platforms that improve the developer experience.
    — “Improve the developer experience around observability and debugging”
  • Showcase hands-on experience with observability tools like Prometheus and Grafana.
    — “Familiarity with tools such as OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog / Elastic / Jaeger / Tempo (or similar)”
Pace · SteadyCollaboration · HighAutonomy · MediumDecision Impact · Team

Derived from job-description analysis by Serendipath's career intelligence engine.

What success looks like

  • high-signal alerts
  • scalable telemetry pipelines
  • service-level indicators and objectives
Typical background
backend or systems software engineering

Skills & requirements

Required

Backend Or Systems Software EngineeringDistributed SystemsNetworking FundamentalsConcurrencyPerformance TradeoffsObservability InstrumentationTelemetry PipelinesMetricsLogsDistributed TracingProduction MonitoringAlerting

Preferred

High-performance ComputingAi/ml SystemsHardware-aware ObservabilitySREPlatform EngineeringDebugging Large-scale Production IncidentsInternal Developer PlatformsShared Libraries

Stack & domain

Backend Or Systems Software EngineeringGoC++RustJavaPythonDistributed SystemsNetworking FundamentalsConcurrencyPerformance TradeoffsMetricsLogsDistributed TracingProduction MonitoringAlertingOpentelemetryPrometheusGrafanaDatadogElasticJaegerTempoHigh-signal AlertsScalable Telemetry PipelinesService-level IndicatorsObjectivesHigh-performance ComputingAi/ml SystemsInference PlatformsHardware-aware ObservabilityAcceleratorsGpusCustom HardwareSREPlatform EngineeringDebugging Large-scale Production IncidentsInternal Developer PlatformsShared LibrariesCollaborationCommunicationTeamworkProblem-solvingAnalytical ThinkingAttention To DetailProject ManagementTime ManagementAdaptabilityLeadershipNetworking

About the role

Original posting from Cerebras Systems via Ashby

Cerebras Systems builds the world's largest AI chip, 56 times larger than GPUs. This architecture allows Cerebras to deliver industry-leading training and inference speeds; over 10 times faster than GPU-based hyperscale cloud inference services.

This order of magnitude increase in speed is transforming the user experience of AI applications, unlocking real-time iteration and increasing intelligence via additional agentic computation.

Cerebras works with the leading model labs, global enterprises, and cutting-edge AI-native startups. OpenAI recently announced a multi-year partnership https://openai.com/index/cerebras-partnership/ with Cerebras, to deploy 750 megawatts of scale, transforming key workloads with ultra high-speed inference.

About the team

The Cerebras Inference team’s mission is to deliver the world’s most performant, secure, and reliable enterprise-grade AI service. We build and operate large-scale distributed systems that power AI inference at unprecedented speed and efficiency. Join us to help scale inference and accelerate AI.

We’re looking for a Software Engineer focused on Observability to build and evolve the systems that give us deep visibility into large-scale, performance-critical production systems.

You’ll design and implement metrics, logging, tracing, and alerting infrastructure that enables fast debugging, high reliability, and confident operation of complex distributed systems. This role sits at the intersection of platform engineering, distributed systems, and reliability.

This is not a dashboards-only role — you’ll be writing production software, shaping internal platforms, and working closely with engineers across the stack.

Responsibilities

  • Design and implement observability instrumentation across services and platforms
  • Build and maintain telemetry pipelines for metrics, logs, and traces at scale
  • Develop internal observability platforms, libraries, and tooling
  • Define and operationalize SLIs, SLOs, and alerting strategies
  • Partner with engineers to make systems debuggable by design
  • Reduce MTTR by enabling fast root-cause analysis during incidents
  • Create clear, actionable dashboards and alerts that reflect real system health
  • Balance telemetry signal vs cost, noise, and performance impact
  • Improve the developer experience around observability and debugging

Qualifications:

Core Engineering Skills

  • Strong experience in backend or systems software engineering
  • Proficiency in one or more of:
  • Go, C++, Rust, Java, Python
  • Solid understanding of:
  • Distributed systems
  • Networking fundamentals
  • Concurrency and performance tradeoffs

Observability & Reliability Experience

  • Hands-on experience with:
  • Metrics, logs, and distributed tracing
  • Production monitoring and alerting
  • Familiarity with tools such as:
  • OpenTelemetry
  • Prometheus
  • Grafana
  • Datadog / Elastic / Jaeger / Tempo (or similar)
  • Experience designing:
  • High-signal alerts
  • Scalable telemetry pipelines
  • Service-level indicators and objectives

Preferred Qualifications:

  • Experience in high-performance computing, AI/ML systems, or inference platforms
  • Hardware-aware observability (accelerators, GPUs, custom hardware)
  • Prior SRE or platform engineering background
  • Experience debugging large-scale production incidents
  • Building internal developer platforms or shared libraries

Why Join Cerebras

People who are serious about software make their own hardware. At Cerebras, we have built a breakthrough architecture that is unlocking new opportunities for the AI industry. With dozens of model releases and rapid growth, we’ve reached an inflection point in our business. Members of our team tell us there are five main reasons they joined Cerebras:

  • Build a breakthrough AI platform beyond the constraints of the GPU.
  • Publish and open source their cutting-edge AI research.
  • Work on one of the fastest AI supercomputers in the world.
  • Enjoy job stability with startup vitality.
  • Our simple, non-corporate work culture that respects individual beliefs.

Find out more about what it's like to work at Cerebras here https://www.cerebras.ai/join-us!

Apply today and become part of the forefront of groundbreaking advancements in AI!

Cerebras Systems is committed to creating an equal and diverse environment and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate different backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. We believe inclusive teams build better products and companies. We try every day to build a work environment that empowers people to do their best work through continuous learning, growth and support of those around them.

This website or its third-party tools process personal data. For more details, click here https://www.cerebras.net/privacy/ to review our CCPA disclosure notice.

Source: Cerebras Systems careers (Ashby)

Similar roles