Platform Engineer - Imaging & Provisioning

WHO WE ARE

Vultr is on a mission to make high-performance cloud infrastructure easy to use, affordable, and locally accessible for enterprises and AI innovators around the world. With 33 global cloud data center locations, Vultr is trusted by hundreds of thousands of active customers across 185 countries for its flexible, scalable, global Cloud Compute, Cloud GPU, Bare Metal, and Cloud Storage solutions. In December 2024 Vultr announced an equity financing at a $3.5 billion valuation. Founded by David Aninowsky and self-funded for over a decade, Vultr has grown to become the world’s largest privately-held cloud infrastructure company.

Vultr Cares

• 100% company-paid insurance premiums for employee medical, dental and vision plans.

• 401(k) plan that matches 100% up to 4%, with immediate vesting

• Professional Development Reimbursement of $2,500 each year

• 11 Holidays + Paid Time Off Accrual + Rollover Plan

• Commitment matters to Vultr! Increased PTO at 3 year and 10 year anniversary + 1 month paid sabbatical every 5 years + Anniversary Bonus each year

• $500 stipend for remote office setup in first year + $400 each following year

• Internet reimbursement up to $75 per month

• Gym membership reimbursement up to $50 per month

• Company paid Wellable subscription

 

Join Vultr

Vultr is seeking a Platform Engineer to join our Imaging & Provisioning team, the engine behind every operating system image and marketplace application that runs on our cloud platform. The ideal candidate is a hands-on systems engineer who loves automating OS installations, building golden images, and making complex deployment workflows feel effortless. In this role, you will expand our catalog of supported operating systems, replace legacy boot-up configuration scripts with cloud-init, add new distributions requested by the community, and manage the full lifecycle of marketplace applications. This is an opportunity to work at the foundation of Vultr's infrastructure, where your work directly impacts every customer who spins up a VM or Bare Metal server.

 

Key Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain OS images for Vultr's Cloud Compute and Bare Metal platforms, including Windows, Linux, and BSD distributions

• Convert images using legacy boot up configuration scripts to use cloud-init for consistent provisioning across all operating systems

• Expand Vultr's OS catalog by adding new distributions requested by the community

• Manage the full lifecycle of marketplace applications - from onboarding new apps to updating and maintaining existing ones

• Develop and maintain automation tooling for image creation, testing, and deployment using Ansible, Packer, and custom scripts

• Collaborate with the Provisioning, Bare Metal, and GPU teams to ensure image compatibility across all hardware platforms

• Debug and resolve image-related issues reported by customers and internal teams, providing root cause analysis and permanent fixes

• Implement and maintain CI/CD pipelines for image builds, ensuring consistent quality and rapid iteration

• Monitor and optimize image boot times, package freshness, and security patch compliance across the entire OS catalog

• Provide assistance with managing automatic installation templates used for deploying infrastructure servers

• Bring fresh perspectives to long-running initiatives

   

Qualifications

• 3+ years of experience in systems engineering, platform engineering, or DevOps with a focus on OS imaging and automation

• Deep familiarity with Linux distribution internals - automated installation of Debian, RHEL/Fedora/CentOS/AlmaLinux/Rocky, Ubuntu, and Arch-based systems

• Experience with BSD operating systems (FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD) and their installation frameworks

• Hands-on experience with cloud-init provisioning agent

• Proficiency in scripting languages: BASH, Python 3, and familiarity with PHP

• Strong experience writing, debugging, and optimizing Ansible playbooks for image automation

• Experience with image building tools such as Packer, Kiwi, or LiveBuild

• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines and version control (Git) for image build automation

• Understanding of virtualization technologies (KVM/QEMU) and bare metal provisioning (iPXE, PXE boot)

• Strong debugging skills - comfortable reading system logs, analyzing boot failures, and tracing provisioning issues

• Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to work across remote, cross-functional teams

 

Compensation

$90,000 - $100,000

Final compensation will vary depending on years of experience, background/skill set, location, and applicable laws.

INCLUSION & PRIVACY

We are an equal opportunity employer and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We welcome applications from individuals of all backgrounds and experiences, and we prohibit discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other protected status under applicable laws. Vultr will consider qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records in accordance with applicable laws and will not conduct a background check until after an offer of employment has been extended and accepted.

We also take your privacy seriously. We handle personal information responsibly and follow applicable laws, including U.S. privacy rules and India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023. Your data is used only for legitimate business purposes and is protected with proper security measures.

Where allowed by law, applicants may request details about the data we collect, access or delete their information, withdraw consent for its use, and opt out of nonessential communications. For more details, please see our Privacy Policy https://www.vultr.com/legal/privacy/.