Staff Engineer - Compute & Agents

At Buildkite, our mission is to unblock every developer on the planet. We've rethought how software delivery should work and have built a platform that is fast, reliable, secure, and able to scale to the needs of the most demanding high-growth tech companies globally, including Airbnb, Shopify, Canva, PagerDuty, Lyft, and Pinterest. Job Overview We're hiring a Staff Engineer to join our Compute and Agents team. In this role, you'll help set technical direction for the team, lead architectural decisions across complex systems, and drive the work that has the highest impact on Buildkite's infrastructure and developer experience. You'll shape how we build and scale our agent infrastructure, hosted compute, and MCP service — balancing reliability, performance, and security at scale. This is a hands-on role. You'll write code, own the hardest problems, and raise the engineering bar across the team through standards, mentoring, and the quality of your own work. About the Team The Compute and Agents team builds, maintains, and iterates on the infrastructure that keeps Buildkite humming — from our open-source agent trusted by engineers around the world, to our hosted agents and MCP service. It's a team that sits at an intersection of deeply technical infrastructure work and the fast-moving world of AI agents, with our own agent in the middle. There's real ownership here. You'll work on problems that matter to developers everywhere, shipping work you can point to and be proud of — alongside a sharp, kind team that loves digging into hard problems together. What You'll Do Help guide the technical direction for the Compute and Agents team, shaping architecture and system design decisions Lead the hardest cross-system integrations and drive solutions to complex infrastructure challenges Design and evolve systems, patterns, and standards that improve reliability, performance, and operability across teams Write code, review code, and pair with engineers — leading by example on quality and craft Build alignment across teams and stakeholders on technical decisions, balancing speed, quality, and impact Collaborate with engineers, designers, and product managers to shape solutions that solve customer problems Mentor and upskill engineers within the team, raising capability and setting shared standards Lead cross-team reliability, performance, and cost initiatives; set operational readiness expectations for major changes Participate in customer research and discovery sessions to inform product and architectural decisions Skills & Experience We Value Core Skills: Strong communication skills, with empathy and kindness in both written and verbal collaboration Proven experience leading technical direction within or across engineering teams Repeated ownership of large or complex production systems, with clear evidence of impact beyond a single team Ability to make strategic trade-offs, articulate decisions clearly, and build alignment in ambiguous situations Strong judgment about where to invest versus where to simplify Comfortable working directly with customers and incorporating feedback into product development Familiarity with CI/CD systems, developer tooling, and DevOps concepts Technical Stack: Go — our primary language, used across our agents and infrastructure. Strong experience or a genuine eagerness to go deep is a must. Kubernetes & AWS — we run cloud-native infrastructure at scale. Experience with container orchestration and distributed systems is a big plus. Terraform — we manage our infrastructure as code with Terraform. Familiarity with IaC principles and writing reusable, maintainable Terraform is valued. Ruby on Rails — the backbone of the Buildkite platform. The majority of our product is built here, so comfort with Rails or a willingness to pick it up matters. React & GraphQL — our frontend and API layer, used across the platform alongside Rails. PostgreSQL — experience with query optimisation, schema design, or managing relational databases under load is a plus. A Typical Day Might Include Leading an architecture discussion for a new capability or system change Reviewing pull requests with detailed, constructive feedback Pairing with an engineer on a complex infrastructure problem Investigating performance bottlenecks or scaling challenges Driving alignment across teams on a cross-cutting technical decision Joining a customer discovery session to understand how teams use agents at scale Writing code on the hardest or most ambiguous parts of the work ✨ Why Join Buildkite At Buildkite, we value kindness, autonomy, and collaboration. You'll be part of a remote-first company where your work can make a meaningful impact — empowering engineers worldwide to build and deliver better software faster. Competitive compensation and benefits package Flexible, remote-first culture Opportunities for professional growth, leadership, and technical ownership Work alongside talented, passionate engineers building world-class developer tools A collaborative, inclusive, and innovative culture where your ideas make a real impact Equal Opportunity Employer At Buildkite, we value diversity and celebrate all types of skills, backgrounds, and experiences. We’re dedicated to fostering an inclusive environment and providing reasonable accommodations throughout our recruitment process. If you need any accommodations or support during the application or interview process, please reach out to us at [email protected].