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Agent guide: [/agents.md](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/agents.md). --- # System Software Engineer (SDN) - **Company:** NVIDIA Ltd. - **Location:** Austin, TX, United States - **Experience:** Expert - **Salary:** $224,000.0 - **Contract:** Permanent contract - **Skills:** Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), Artificial Intelligence, Systems Engineering, User Authentication, Automation of Tests, Bash Shell, Cloud Computing, Configuration Management, Profiling, Code Review, Computer Networks, Computer Engineering, Continuous Delivery, Continuous Integration, Software Debugging, Linux, Programming Tools, Distributed Systems, Web Servers, Internet Protocol, Interoperability, Python (Programming Language), Kernel-Based Virtual Machine, Network Functions Virtualization, Network Interface, Routing, Node.Js, Open Source Technology, Open VSwitch, OpenFlow, Quick EMUlator (QEMU), Remote Direct Memory Access, Reliability Engineering, Server Administration, Software Engineering, Systems Architecture, System Software, Systems Integration, Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), Software Technical Review, User Datagram Protocols, Virtual Hosting, Virtual Machines, Virtualization Technology, Network Switches, Network Routing, Data Processing, Scripting, Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), Flexi (Photoshop Plugin), Kubernetes, Storage Technologies, Information Technology, SDN Network, Virtual Agents, Restful APIs, Open Network Automation Platform - **Published:** September 17, 2026 - **Apply:** https://www.careerbuilder.com/job-details/senior-system-software-engineer-software-defined-networking-austin-tx--b2a0bc9f-c28c-49b4-955f-efd3ee6fbe9d ## About the Role * BS or MS in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent experience. * 12+ years of proven experience designing, implementing, testing, and maintaining production software in both C and Go, with Bash and Python used for test, diagnostic, build, or operational automation. * Concrete experience developing, integrating, and solving issues in Open vSwitch and OVN, including OpenFlow and control-plane-to-data-plane behavior. * Production Kubernetes networking experience, including container network interfaces, network policy, node and pod traffic paths, network-plugins, upgrades, and failure modes. * Strong Linux networking fundamentals and practical understanding of IP, TCP, UDP, routing, switching, overlay networks, tunneling, network namespaces, and network policy. * Experience architecting distributed systems with secure service APIs, state management, consistency, scalability, compatibility, and failure handling. * Experience handling the production lifecycle through automated testing, CI/CD, deployments, upgrades, observability, and performance analysis. * Experience supporting production services through a shared on-call rotation and coordinating incident response through evidence from flows, logs, metrics, traces, profiles, experiments, and source-level debugging. * Collaborative architecture and technical leadership through written designs, consequential decisions, cross-team work, critical reviews, mentoring, and delivery of significant systems through production operation. Ways to stand out from the crowd: * Contributions to Open vSwitch, OVN, OVN-Kubernetes, Kubernetes networking, or another relevant open-source project. * Experience with large-scale cloud and accelerated virtualization systems, including SR-IOV, RDMA, SmartNICs, data processing units, network function virtualization, KVM/QEMU, or container runtimes. * Experience building secure, high-performance gRPC or REST services using transport security and strong authentication. * Applied use of agentic AI and AI-assisted software-development tooling, including coding agents, reusable skills, or Model Context Protocol integrations., Application Programming Interface (API), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Authentication, Automation, Bash Scripting, Cloud Computing, Code Reviews, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Concrete, Configuration Management, Content Delivery/Distribution, Continuous Deployment/Delivery, Continuous Integration, Data Processing, Debugging Skills, Delivery Driving, Distributed Computing, Energy Efficiency, GPU (Graphics Processing Unit), Gaming, IP (Internet Protocol), Incident Response, Infrastructure Software, Interoperability, K Virtual Machine (KVM), Linux Networks, Linux Operating System, Mentoring, Metrics, Network Routing, Network Software, Network Switching, On Call, Open Source, Performance Analysis, Performance Management, Problem Solving Skills, Production Support, Programming Tools, Python Programming/Scripting Language, Quality Management, REST (Representational State Transfer), Reliability Engineering, Software Administration, Software Development, Software Engineering, Storage Software, Strategic Planning, System Architecture, System Operations, Systems Engineering, TCP (Transmission Control Protocol), Team Player, Technical Leadership, Telemetry, Test Automation, Testing, UDP (User Datagram Protocol), Virtual Hosting, Virtual Machine (VM), Virtualization, Web Client Plug-ins ## Description NVIDIA is looking for a Senior System Software Engineer (SDN) to advance software-defined networking for global GPU cloud infrastructure that enables AI workloads, cloud gaming, content delivery, and other accelerated services. Build and operate secure, programmable cloud networking using Open vSwitch, OVN, Kubernetes, C, and Go. Collaborate with senior engineers, NVIDIA architects, and partner teams to lead architecture, implementation, qualification, issue response, and production improvements. What you'll be doing: * Collaborate with engineers and architects to define, review, and evolve multi-tenant control-plane and data-plane architecture using Open vSwitch, OVN, OpenFlow, and overlay network technologies. * Demonstrate technical leadership and mentorship through design and code reviews, implementation guidance, production-readiness decisions, and improvements to engineering quality. * Develop and review production software for Kubernetes networking, network plugins, distributed control planes, Linux host networking, virtual-machine networking, and network automation. * Translate product and infrastructure requirements into secure orchestration services, APIs, component boundaries, state models, compatibility strategies, and delivery plans while driving shared decisions. * Drive Open vSwitch and OVN integration across flow behavior, configuration, lifecycle management, upgrades, interoperability, performance, failure recovery, and large-scale production operation. * Build and implement automated unit, integration, system, performance, scale, and upgrade tests connected to continuous integration, deployment, and release-qualification workflows. * Share the team's on-call rotation and lead networking escalations with partner teams. Use packet captures, SDN state, telemetry, profiling, controlled experiments, and source debugging to resolve incidents and prevent recurrence. * Define and improve reliability, performance, security, and resource-efficiency objectives while engineering actionable monitoring, telemetry, tracing, and service-level visibility for production networks. ## Related Videos - [How I saved 200K/yr in direct costs writing 0 code lines in K8s](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1055-how-i-saved-200k-yr-in-direct-costs-writing-0-code-lines-in-k8s) - [Docker network without Docker](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1418-docker-network-without-docker) - [Creating a routing app with Google Maps API from scratch](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/831-creating-a-routing-app-with-google-maps-api-from-scratch) - [Stop using Node.js like in 2020! 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