below marketmost similar roles pay hereabove market
This role pays more than
99%
of similar roles. Most pay
$174,600–$225,500
— the blue band above.
At the midpoint, this role pays about
$352k
versus about
$200k
for comparable roles.
Based on 240 similar postings.
Employer
About Nvidia
Nvidia is a leading designer of graphics processing units (GPUs) and system-on-chip units, powering gaming, professional visualization, data centers, and artificial intelligence workloads. Industry: Semiconductors & AI Computing
Nvidia currently has
1623 open roles
on FindRole.
Listed pay typically runs
$184,000–$287,500
across 1110 roles with salary data.
As a Principal Software Engineer - Rack Scale Systems Infrastructure, you will join the team responsible for building and guiding software systems that support upcoming rack-scale infrastructure products and services. You will define complete software architectures for control plane services, firmware, operating systems, kernel drivers, and networking fabrics. Your daily work involves composing infrastructure-as-a-service control plane software to convert complex hardware into manageable, programmable infrastructure. You will utilize Kubernetes, Go, C++, and Rust to build controllers, operators, and integration APIs. The role requires bridging hardware and software teams across NVLink, InfiniBand, and GPU domains. You will solve technical problems related to lifecycle orchestration, failure handling, and secure boot while translating infrastructure roadmaps into formal requirements for hyperscalers and enterprise customers within a high-performance computing context.
What does a Software Engineer earn in California?
Median $214500 from 1193 postings across 76 companies.
Define the complete software architecture for rack-scale infrastructure products, including control planes, firmware, and networking fabrics.
Compose infrastructure-as-a-service control plane software to convert hardware into manageable and programmable infrastructure.
Build open-source infrastructure software such as libraries, services, controllers, and integration APIs for internal and CSP environments.
Translate infrastructure roadmaps into formal software requirements, architecture specifications, and execution plans for cross-functional teams.
Partner with hyperscalers, CSPs, and enterprise customers to align infrastructure capabilities with real-world deployment needs.
Establish reliability, security, and validation strategies to reduce risk before hardware reaches production environments.
Mentor senior engineers and technical leads to raise the engineering bar for large-scale networked systems.
Make high-quality technical decisions balancing customer needs, hardware realities, software maintainability, and long-term infrastructure evolution.
What we're looking for
BS or MS in Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
15+ years of experience in systems architecture, system software, distributed systems, infrastructure control planes, or infrastructure engineering.
Solid architectural knowledge of coordination frameworks, state machines, declarative APIs, reconciliation loops, lifecycle orchestration, and distributed systems tradeoffs.
Practical coding skills in Go, C++, or Rust to write, review, and direct production-quality infrastructure software.
Experience with Kubernetes or similar orchestration systems for managing infrastructure, hardware resources, or large-scale services.
Experience with Linux-based infrastructure software, OS rollout, kernel/driver interactions, firmware lifecycle, and hardware bring-up workflows.
Strong understanding of data center networking technologies and protocols, such as Ethernet, InfiniBand, and RDMA.
Experience with complex accelerator-based systems including GPUs, DPUs, FPGAs, or other high-performance computing systems.
Go
C++
Rust
Python
Linux
Kubernetes
Distributed Systems
OpenBMC
Redfish
NVLink
InfiniBand
Ethernet
Embedded Linux
Telemetry
State Machines
Fault Injection
Hardware Bring-up
Server Firmware