About this Senior Software Engineer, Sage Grande Testbed role at Colorado State University
Job Description
Position Summary:
Leads the design, development, and reliable operation of software and infrastructure supporting a national-scale artificial intelligence testbed, including a growing fleet of edge computing devices, cloud infrastructure, and data pipelines. Works independently and exercises significant judgment on complex projects, sets technical direction, and mentors’ junior staff. Selects, builds, and maintains the tooling needed to monitor, secure, and scale the platform, and partners with research users and external collaborators to ensure their requirements are met.
Full Consideration Date: please apply by Monday, October 26, 2026, 11:59pm (MT). Open until filled.
Work Location:
Chicago, Illinois: This software engineer position is being hired through Colorado State University, working remotely and hosted in Chicago at Northwestern University and Argonne National Laboratory to leverage their advanced computing infrastructure for AI application development. Argonne's national lab-grade computing facilities, combined with Northwestern's research computing environment, provide the specialized infrastructure needed to develop, test, and scale the AI applications central to this work.
Essential Job Duties:
Software Development & Reliability Engineering:
- Design and develop software for operating and scaling a distributed network of AI-enabled edge computing nodes, growing from 150 to 500 devices; build substantial custom tooling and infrastructure; ensure distributed fleet, cloud infrastructure, and data pipelines operations.
Technical Leadership & Strategic Planning:
- Participate in planning and setting technical direction; provide mentoring to students and junior engineers; develop software deployment technologies across systems at scale; partner with distributed team to inform monitoring, infrastructure, and cybersecurity decisions.
Collaboration & Administration:
- Work with key collaborators to meet nodes and data expectations; set up and manage support ticket systems to address platform and device issues; and create and maintain code and system documentation, maintenance, and certificate renewals.
Conditions of Employment:
- Pre-employment Criminal Background Check (required for all new hires).
- Valid driver's license by employment start date.
- Authorized to work in the United States by employment start date.
- Ability to routinely travel between work sites – Argonne National Laboratory, University of Illinois Chicago, and Northwestern University.
Supervision:
Leads and mentors a small team of 1–2 junior engineers, with the team expected to grow over time.
Minimum Qualifications:
- Bachelor's degree in computer science, computer engineering or a related field.
- Five years of direct experience supporting code, services, and deployments in production.
- Fluent in Linux, including scripting, user management, networking, package management, SSH, and debugging.
- Fluent in software engineering.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Experience leading or mentoring engineers.
- Strong communication skills and a strong willingness to learn new tools and technologies on the job.
- Familiarity with:
- Kubernetes, including deploying and administering clusters.
- Monitoring and data-collection tooling such as Prometheus and Grafana.
- Cloud-based data stores such as object stores and time series databases.
- Cybersecurity best practices, such as how to securely deploy a web service.
- Embedded Linux devices such as Raspberry Pi or the NVIDIA Jetson and Orin family.
- Software stacks needed to support AI.
- Cloud infrastructure concepts such as time-series databases (e.g., InfluxDB), S3 storage, message brokers (e.g., RabbitMQ), caching (e.g., Redis), and web services.
- Infrastructure as Code and configuration management tooling such as Ansible.
- Data analysis and visualization in Python, with the ability to communicate issues using these tools.
- CI/CD tooling such as GitHub Actions.
Salary Range
$100,000 - $140,000Required Application Documents
To apply, please upload the following applicant documents. Ensure your materials fully address the required and preferred job qualifications of the position. Please note, applicants may redact information from their application materials that identifies their age, date of birth, or dates of attendance at or graduation from an educational institution.
Cover Letter, Resume/CVEmployee Benefits
Colorado State University is not just a workplace; it’s a thriving community that’s transforming lives and improving the human condition through world-class teaching, research, and service. With a robust benefits package, collaborative atmosphere, and focus on work-life balance, CSU is where you can thrive, grow, and make a lasting impact.
Background Check Policy Statement
Colorado State University strives to provide a safe study, work, and living environment for its faculty, staff, volunteers and students. To support this environment and comply with applicable laws and regulations, CSU conducts background checks for the finalist before a final offer. The type of background check conducted varies by position and can include, but is not limited to, criminal history, sex offender registry, motor vehicle history, financial history, and/or education verification. Background checks will also be conducted when required by law or contract and when, in the discretion of the University, it is reasonable and prudent to do so.
EEO
Colorado State University (CSU) provides equal employment opportunities to all applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.
