Infrastructure Support Engineer

About lowRISC CIC

lowRISC is a not-for-profit engineering organisation dedicated to making open-source silicon a commercial reality. Through collaborative, community-driven projects like OpenTitan (the world's first open-source silicon root of trust) and Ibex (a production-grade RISC-V CPU core), we develop and maintain high-quality, verified open IP that powers secure, next-generation hardware. Our small, expert team combines deep hardware knowledge with modern software and infrastructure practices to accelerate open silicon adoption across industry partners and the RISC-V ecosystem.

Role Overview

We're looking for a motivated Infrastructure Support Engineer. You'll support a compact but unusually broad infrastructure footprint that supports hardware design, security verification, FPGA-based testing, CI/CD for silicon projects, and collaborative open-source workflows.

This is a fantastic opportunity for a junior to mid-level engineer who thrives on learning new technologies quickly and enjoys making incremental improvements in a mission-focused setting. You'll gain hands-on experience across declarative infrastructure, zero-trust networking, hybrid cloud/on-prem Kubernetes, and custom tooling—while contributing directly to the productivity of engineers building foundational open-source silicon.

Key Responsibilities

• Help maintain and troubleshoot our on-prem Kubernetes cluster, powering hardware simulation, verification, and test workloads
• Support our Nebula overlay network as we build toward a robust zero-trust model across distributed engineering teams
• Operate and enhance self-hosted GitHub Actions runners, including an FPGA test rig that handles real hardware requests from CI workflows
• Maintain and gradually improve our Python-based internal tooling (used daily by hardware and software engineers) — refactoring for maintainability, adding features, and applying better software practices where it adds value
• Manage NixOS servers through declarative configurations for reproducible, reliable deployments
• Provision and manage Google Cloud resources (VMs, GKE-based runners, storage, networking) using Terraform / OpenTofu
• Monitor system health and respond to alerts
• Collaborate with hardware engineers, security specialists, and open-source contributors to debug issues spanning CI pipelines, FPGA rigs, cloud environments, and internal scripts
• Document setups, workflows, and lessons learned to help onboard new team members and partners

Required Skills & Experience

• Strong Linux fundamentals and comfort administering production-like systems
• Practical Python experience for scripting, automation, and maintaining existing codebases (you'll read and improve real-world Python tools regularly)
• Hands-on work with Kubernetes (basic operations, troubleshooting, YAML manifests)
• Experience with Infrastructure as Code tools like Terraform / OpenTofu (or similar)
• Solid Git/GitHub knowledge, ideally with Actions or CI/CD pipelines
• Curiosity and ability to ramp up on new tools and concepts quickly
• Clear communication skills for working across hardware, software, and infrastructure domains
• Experience using AI-assisted development workflows (e.g., Claude Code, Codex, or similar AI tools)

Desirable

• Any exposure to Nix or NixOS (personal projects welcome)
• Interest in or experience with Rust for performance-sensitive tooling
• Familiarity with Google Cloud (GCE, GKE, IAM)
• Knowledge of overlay/VPN technologies (Nebula, Tailscale, WireGuard) or zero-trust principles
• Previous involvement in CI for hardware/FPGA testing or open-source projects
• Experience with FPGA development

What We're Looking For

We're seeking someone who is excited by variety — you'll touch many different systems and technologies in a small team, gaining broad, valuable skills fast. The environment rewards initiative, problem-solving, and steady progress on both quick fixes and longer-term clean-ups. If you enjoy stretching yourself across open-source silicon tooling, hybrid infrastructure, and collaborative engineering — and you appreciate the satisfaction of making life easier for a team pushing the boundaries of secure hardware — this role offers real scope to grow while contributing to high-impact projects.

What We Offer

• Direct involvement in enabling open-source silicon at scale (OpenTitan, Ibex, and beyond)
• Exposure to an unusually diverse modern stack in a focused, mission-driven not-for-profit
• Opportunities to learn from hardware security experts, RISC-V specialists, and open-source collaborators
• Collaborative, low-ego culture with strong emphasis on quality and long-term maintainability

Salary and Benefits:

Salary dependent upon experience

lowRISC offers a generous benefits package including:

• 25 days annual leave plus 8 bank holidays.
• 12.5% employer’s pension contribution (subject to employee salary sacrifice of 6%).
• 4 weeks paid sabbatical after 4 years service.
• Private Medical Insurance, Group Income Protection Insurance, Critical Illness Insurance, Life Insurance.
• The opportunity to attend appropriate Industry conferences and/or training.
• Central Cambridge Office (near train station)

We are open to discussions about hybrid working after an initial probationary period.

We are an equal opportunities employer and encourage applications from eligible and suitably qualified candidates regardless of age, disability, ethnicity, gender, gender reassignment, religion or belief, sexual orientation, marital or civil partnership status, or pregnancy and maternity/paternity.

If you need any adjustments made to the application or selection process, please let us know by emailing hr@lowrisc.org