Staff Engineer Distributed Systems & Infrastructure Rotterdam

Vacancy: Staff Engineer Distributed Systems & Infrastructure Rotterdam

• Do you want to work on systems that directly impact the physical worldand play a critical role in mission-critical operational processes?
• Are you looking for a role where you don't just manage infrastructure, but become a co-owner of the entire distributed systems and cloud landscape?
• Do you get excited about scalability, reliability, Kubernetes, Kafka, Cassandra, ClickHouse, and solving complex engineering challenges?
• And does an exceptional engineering culture, direct collaboration with the CTO, and a salary of up to €130.000 sound appealing?

Then this is a role you should seriously consider.

Your employer: where software meets the physical world

You will join a fast-growing Dutch deep-tech scale-up that develops software for organizations that depend on reliable operational processes. The technology built here has a direct impact on the physical world. Not on ad clicks, marketing funnels, or social media engagement, but on real-world processes that organizations rely on every day to operate safely, efficiently, and reliably.

What makes this company unique is its combination of technical depth, ambition, and engineering excellence. As customers grow, so do the data volumes, infrastructure demands, and technical complexity. As a result, you'll be working daily on challenges around scalability, reliability, observability, and distributed systems that you would normally expect to encounter at companies many times this size.

At the same time, the engineering team intentionally remains small. This gives every engineer visible influence over architecture, infrastructure, and technical decision-making. You will work directly alongside the CTO and have significant influence on the future direction of the platform.

The engineering culture revolves around one principle: making complex systems simpler. Solutions are not judged by how much technology they contain, but by how elegant, scalable, and maintainable they are.

And right now is a particularly exciting time to join. The company is growing at close to 100% ARR year-over-year. Customers are growing, workloads are increasing, and the technical challenges are scaling along with them. This creates a unique opportunity for an engineer who wants to do more than maintain systems and actively help shape the next phase of the platform.

Your role: Staff Engineer Distributed Systems & Infrastructure Rotterdam

This role sits at the intersection of Distributed Systems Engineering, Infrastructure Engineering, and Site Reliability Engineering. You will work closely with the CTO and the current Platform Engineer and become jointly responsible for the platform's entire infrastructure and distributed systems layer.

The objective is clear: within 6 to 12 months, you will independently own a significant part of this landscape and become a key technical sparring partner for the CTO.

Your work will include:

• Kubernetes (AWS EKS)
• Kafka
• Cassandra
• ClickHouse
• AWS infrastructure
• Networking & Security
• Observability
• Reliability Engineering
• CI/CD & Automation

Technology itself is merely the tool. What makes this role unique is that you'll be tackling challenges normally found at organizations many times larger. Because the team is small, you'll enjoy a level of ownership and influence that in larger organizations is often reserved for Principal Engineers or Architects.

The real challenges revolve around questions such as:

• How do we scale without increasing operational complexity?
• How do we improve reliability while workloads continue to grow?
• How do we simplify operations and automate more?
• How do we prevent bottlenecks before they appear?

Approximately 80% of your time will be spent on hands-on engineering and 20% on architecture, technical alignment, and strategic discussions.

This is a role for engineers who prefer building over managing.

What we're looking for:

• At least 6 years of experience in Distributed Systems, Infrastructure Engineering, SRE, or similar environments
• Strong production-level Kubernetes experience
• Experience with AWS or comparable cloud platforms
• Experience with Infrastructure as Code
• Strong Linux, networking, and infrastructure fundamentals
• Experience building and operating scalable, reliable infrastructure
• You enjoy ownership and responsibility
• You're technically strong without having a big ego

What is offered:

• Salary between €95.000 and €130.000 depending on experience
• Work directly alongside a highly technical and inspiring CTO
• The option to work 32, 36, or 40 hours per week
• The opportunity to purchase company shares at an attractive discount
• Pension plan
• 28 vacation days
• The ability to work remotely up to 50% of your time
• An inspiring office with excellent public transport access
• Travel reimbursement
• A high-end laptop of your choice (MacBook or equivalent)
• Catered lunch every day
• Personal learning and development budget

Are you an engineer who thrives on distributed systems, scalability, ownership, and technical complexity?