Platform Engineer

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

About the Role

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.