HPC Hardware Engineer, Firmware Management

NorthMark Strategies • Dallas, TX

2d • Hybrid

About The Position

NorthMark Compute & Cloud (NMC²) is hiring an HPC Hardware Engineer focused on firmware management. The Hardware Engineering team owns the firmware lifecycle across a heterogeneous fleet of HPC and AI infrastructure, including CPU and GPU servers and rack-scale systems built on platforms such as NVIDIA A100/H200, HPE GB200, and Dell GB300 NVL72, as well as BlueField DPUs and ConnectX adapters. The engineer will keep firmware current, compatible, and safe to deploy across hardware variants by tracking vendor releases and advisories, qualifying versions, identifying regressions, and maintaining approved fleet-wide baselines.

The role engineers vendor-neutral automation for firmware packaging, provisioning, and rack-aware deployment. It combines Redfish, IPMI, and vendor tooling such as iLO, iDRAC, OneView, and NVIDIA utilities in reusable, declarative workflows. The engineer also builds automation and services for hardware onboarding, firmware deployment, testing, observability, and recovery.

The position works closely with Data Center Operations, Networking, Software Engineering, and external hardware and firmware vendors to investigate regressions, validate fixes, and maintain fleet health. The role is based in NMC²'s Dallas, Texas office (Victory Commons) and is hybrid.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or equivalent practical experience.
• Strong DevOps experience managing heterogeneous HPC hardware at scale, spanning CPU/GPU servers and rack-scale systems.
• Hands-on experience with Redfish, IPMI, and vendor management interfaces such as iLO, iDRAC, OneView, or equivalent NVIDIA utilities.
• Proficiency in Python and experience with Linux systems administration, Ansible, Jenkins, and Git in a production automation context.
• Experience with workflow orchestration tools such as Temporal, including designing for controlled concurrency, retries, and failure recovery.
• Familiarity with firmware packaging and release processes, such as HPE Service Pack for ProLiant and NVIDIA BlueField BFB bundles, and safe rollout practices such as canaries and phased deployment.
• Ability to work directly with hardware and firmware vendors to diagnose regressions, escalate defects, and validate fixes.
• Strong ownership mindset, including identifying inefficiencies and driving automation from proposal through production adoption.
• Excellent cross-functional communication skills and ability to coordinate with data center operations, software engineering, and external vendor teams.
• Must be legally authorized to work in the United States without needing employer sponsorship now or in the future.

Nice To Haves

• OpenStack/Ironic experience.
• Terraform and cloud-init experience.

Responsibilities

• Own the firmware lifecycle, including monitoring vendor releases and security advisories, assessing applicability, qualifying compatibility and performance, and detecting fleet regressions.
• Maintain approved firmware baselines across heterogeneous hardware, including NVIDIA A100/H200 GPU servers, HPE GB200 and Dell GB300 NVL72 rack-scale systems, BlueField DPUs, and ConnectX adapters.
• Build vendor-neutral provisioning and firmware automation using reusable workflows and declarative configuration, integrating open-source tools, Redfish/IPMI, and vendor-specific interfaces.
• Build and maintain automation using Python, Ansible, Jenkins, Git, and Temporal, including inventory APIs, rack-aware upgrade orchestration, testing, controlled concurrency, retries, and failure recovery.
• Manage firmware packaging and safe fleet deployment, including custom HPE SPPs, BlueField BFB bundles, versioned release manifests, and controlled artifact promotion; use representative lab testing, canaries, phased rollouts, health checks, and recovery procedures.
• Automate end-to-end hardware onboarding and provisioning across servers, racks, and data centers, including inventory validation, management configuration, and firmware readiness, using OpenStack/Ironic, Terraform, and cloud-init where applicable.
• Work with vendors and data center teams to investigate firmware regressions and hardware faults, escalate defects, validate fixes, and establish safe repair procedures.
• Build secure, observable, supportable services using secrets management, least-privilege access, hardware-health telemetry, actionable alerting, and firmware drift detection.
• Identify recurring fleet risks and manual work, propose scalable automation, and drive solutions through validation into production adoption.
• Document operational procedures and firmware standards so engineers and on-call responders can operate systems safely.

Benefits

• Company-paid lunch stipend provided via GrubHub.
• 100% employer-paid medical coverage in the High Deductible Health Plan, plus dental and vision benefits for employees and their families.
• 16 weeks of paid parental leave.
• Employee Assistance Program.
• Life insurance.
• Short-term disability and long-term disability coverage.
• 401(k) with a 100% company match on contributions up to 6%.
• Optional employee-paid PPO medical insurance and other benefits, including Health Savings Accounts with a company contribution, Flexible Spending Accounts, supplemental life insurance, and Wellhub.
• 25 days of paid time off plus 12 company holidays.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level