Engineering Manager, Runtime Fabric

Baseten

Recruit, hire, and develop a high-performing team of systems engineers with deep container and Linux expertise.; Foster a culture of technical rigor, open-source contribution, and continuous improvement.

Posted 6/9/2026Verified active Jul 25, 2026, 12:37 AMfull-timeSan Francisco • California • 🇺🇸 United StatesSeniorLeadWebsite

Core Competencies

Role fit

Core Competencies

Use this summary to align your resume positioning with the role.

Candidates should emphasize their leadership experience in managing engineering teams within systems and infrastructure contexts, particularly in the Linux container ecosystem. Highlighting contributions to open-source projects and a strong systems programming background will be crucial, along with expertise in container runtimes and GPU access in containers.

Highest-signal resume keywords

Team LeadershipTechnical DirectionOpen-Source ContributionSystems ProgrammingContainer Ecosystem Expertise

ATS Keywords

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills

Linux Container EcosystemContainerdRuncGoC/C++Distributed Storage SystemsGPU Device AccessContainer Image ManagementSecure Container RuntimesMicro-VM Technologies

Soft Skills

Communication SkillsInfluencing SkillsCoachingFeedbackCareer Development

Tools & Technologies

NVIDIA Container ToolkitCDIGVisorFirecrackerCloud Hypervisor

Industry Keywords

Container RuntimeAI Inference WorkloadsOpen-Source ProjectsInfrastructure EngineeringSystems Engineering

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

CloudGoLinuxSpark

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Container runtimes were designed for general-purpose software workloads. AI inference is not a general-purpose workload.
Running large models at production scale exposes cracks in every layer of the container stack: runtimes unaware of GPU memory constraints, images that take minutes to pull when a model needs to scale to thousands of replicas, and isolation mechanisms that weren't designed for the multi-tenant serving environments that production AI requires. The tools the industry has relied on for a decade weren't built for this, and patching around those limitations at higher layers only goes so far.
Baseten owns the entire pipeline, from the moment a developer pushes a model to the moment a request gets a response. That vertical ownership means we can fix these problems at the root. The Runtime Fabrics team is doing exactly that: purpose-building the container runtime and storage layers for AI inference workloads, led by some of the world's top containerd maintainers.
As Engineering Manager of the Runtime Fabrics team, you will lead this work, setting technical direction, growing a world-class team of systems engineers, and ensuring the team's output shapes not just Baseten's infrastructure but the open-source container ecosystem at large. If you've contributed to containerd, runc, or related OCI projects and are ready to lead a team solving some of the hardest problems in infrastructure today, we'd love to talk.
Team Leadership & Culture
Recruit, hire, and develop a high-performing team of systems engineers with deep container and Linux expertise.
Foster a culture of technical rigor, open-source contribution, and continuous improvement.
Provide regular coaching, feedback, and career development support to your direct reports.
Partner with engineering leadership to define the long-term vision and roadmap for container runtime and storage infrastructure.
Technical Direction

Requirements

What you’ll need

Proven experience managing and growing engineering teams in a systems, infrastructure, or low-level runtime context.
Deep familiarity with the Linux container ecosystem: containerd, runc, OCI Runtime Spec, Linux namespaces, and cgroups, with the ability to engage credibly in code reviews and architectural discussions.
Contributions to containerd/containerd, opencontainers/runc, google/gvisor, kata-containers/kata-containers, or closely related open-source projects.
Strong systems programming background in Go and/or C/C++.
Experience with distributed storage systems, content-addressable storage, or large-scale caching infrastructure.
Understanding of how container images are structured, stored, and delivered at scale.
Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to influence without authority across teams.
Experience with GPU device access in containers: NVIDIA Container Toolkit, CDI (Container Device Interface), or GPU-aware scheduling.
Familiarity with lazy-loading snapshotters (stargz, soci, EROFS/Nydus) or peer-to-peer image distribution.
Experience with secure container runtimes (gVisor, Sysbox) or micro-VM technologies (Firecracker, Cloud Hypervisor).

Benefits

Comp & perks

Competitive compensation, including meaningful equity.
100% coverage of medical, dental, and vision insurance for employee and dependents
Flexible PTO policy including company wide Winter Break (our offices are closed from Christmas Eve to New Year's Day!)
Paid parental leave
Fertility and family-building stipend through Carrot
Company-facilitated 401(k)
Exposure to a variety of ML startups, offering unparalleled learning and networking opportunities.
Apply now to embark on a rewarding journey in shaping the future of AI! If you are a motivated individual with a passion for machine learning and a desire to be part of a collaborative and forward-thinking team, we would love to hear from you.
At Baseten, we are committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace. We provide equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, genetic information, disability, or veteran status.
We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and will consider qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with applicable law (by example, the requirements of the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, where applicable).