Member of Technical Staff — Network Engineer (Software)

Lucid Computing•San Francisco, CA

About The Position

Lucid Computing, in partnership with the Research Institutes of Sweden (RISE), is building and operating an adversarial testbed for developing and red-teaming AI compute verification solutions. The network is a critical layer of this work: verification claims about where AI compute runs, how it is used, and what model is loaded must withstand adversarial attacks. The role develops network devices and software that support workload classification, traffic shaping, telemetry aggregation, randomized inference routing and load balancing, line-rate traffic capture and hashing, and cryptographic commitments to network telemetry rather than traffic contents. It also includes software that enables programmable NICs (FlexNICs) and traffic shapers to constrain and observe GPU-server I/O, as well as assurance software that checks telemetry against signed job manifests, evaluates policy, and emits chained, verifiable receipts. The systems must remain trustworthy even when the network operator may be the adversary. The work includes contributing to threat models, proposing and defending security protocols and device designs, participating in design reviews, and hardening and remediating systems in response to red-team findings. The role collaborates with hardware/FPGA engineers, security engineers, and verification researchers. Designs and code will contribute to open, published reference architectures intended for reuse by frontier labs, governments, and future compute agreements. The position can be based in San Francisco or London, or be fully remote.

Requirements

Real-world experience writing production software for network devices and/or network-focused software for large-scale network-based applications serving significant real-world traffic.
Hands-on network security experience; examples include secure device design, hardened network protocols, traffic analysis and anomaly detection, DDoS mitigation, network access control, or security-focused code and design review.
Strong networking fundamentals, including L2–L4 protocols, routing and switching behavior, network topologies, load balancing, QoS and traffic shaping, and network performance under load.
Strong systems programming skills in languages appropriate to data-plane and control-plane work, such as C, C++, Rust, or Go.
Deep familiarity with the Linux networking stack.
A track record of building robust, reliable software at scale.
Creative problem-solving skills and comfort reasoning about adversaries, developing novel designs, and revising them in response to red-team findings.
Ability to work effectively in a small, fast-moving team spanning software, hardware, and security.
Ability to communicate designs clearly in writing.

Nice To Haves

Experience developing network-device hardware, embedded network systems, or collaborating closely with hardware teams on device bring-up.
Experience physically securing network devices, including tamper-evident or tamper-resistant design, secure installation and cabling assurance, or physical security assessments of network infrastructure.
Data-plane programming experience with DPDK, XDP/eBPF, P4, or programmable switch, SmartNIC, or DPU platforms.
FPGA experience, including working with or writing software for FPGA-based network appliances or collaborating with RTL/firmware engineers.
Applied cryptography and attestation experience, such as line-rate hashing or signing, hash-chained logs, certificate and key management, or TPM/TEE attestation flows.
Offensive security or red-team experience with networked systems, including familiarity with covert channels and network side channels.
Familiarity with AI/ML infrastructure, such as GPU-cluster networking (InfiniBand/RoCE or NVLink-scale fabrics), inference-serving architectures, or training and inference traffic patterns.
Experience with telemetry and observability systems, including line-rate packet capture, flow monitoring, or high-throughput time-series pipelines.
Contributions to open-source networking projects or open standards such as IETF or OCP.
Interest in AI safety, security, and governance.

Responsibilities

Build production software for network devices and network-focused systems supporting AI compute verification.
Develop or contribute to traffic-shaping, workload-classification, telemetry, routing, and load-balancing designs.
Develop network-tap and evidence-plane capabilities, including line-rate traffic capture and hashing and cryptographic commitments to network telemetry.
Build software that enables programmable NICs and traffic shapers to constrain and observe GPU-server I/O.
Develop assurance software that cross-checks network telemetry against signed job manifests, evaluates policy, and emits chained, verifiable receipts.
Contribute to threat models and originate novel security protocols and device designs.
Defend designs in reviews and harden and remediate systems in response to red-team findings.
Collaborate with hardware/FPGA engineers, security engineers, and verification researchers.
Communicate designs clearly in writing and contribute to open, published reference architectures.