Staff Bazel Engineer (DevOps / Build Systems)

Job Description

Job Description

Staff Bazel Engineer (DevOps / Build Systems)
Location: Bay Area, CA (On-Site)
Employment Type: Full-Time (W-2)
Compensation: Up to $220,000 base salary + up to 10% annual bonus

What You Get

• Base salary up to $220,000 (staff-level scope with real ownership)

• Company bonus eligibility (~10%, performance-based)

• Unlimited PTO with a culture that actually encourages its use

• Relocation support (case-by-case)

• High-impact work across autonomous mobility, robotics, marine, agriculture, automotive, and defense

• Full ownership of Bazel at scale—architecture, tooling, and standards

• Direct influence over internal build systems and customer-facing delivery

• Clear path toward technical leadership as the platform and team scale

If you’ve been “the Bazel person” everywhere you’ve worked and you’re tired of duct-taping fragile build systems without authority, this role gives you the keys.

Why This Role Matters

For 10 years my client has built safety-critical autonomous software deployed across marine, agriculture, automotive (ADAS), and defense. The entire C++ platform has been migrated from CMake to Bazel and is fully live, with meaningful evolution still ahead. This role exists to provide deep technical ownership of Bazel across the company—not just maintenance. You’ll sit on the DevOps team and work closely with core C++ engineers and customers.

Expected focus:

• 60–65% internal platform and build ownership

• 30–35% customer-facing engineering guidance

What You Will Do

• Act as the primary technical authority for Bazel across the organization

• Architect, maintain, and improve large-scale Bazel build systems for a complex C++ codebase

• Write and maintain custom Starlark rules

• Lead Bazel version upgrades and long-term build strategy

• Own CI/CD integration, build performance, caching, and cross-platform workflows

• Enable customers to consume products even if they do not use Bazel

• Work directly with customer engineering teams on build and tooling strategy

• Mentor internal engineers and raise build-quality standards

This is a design-and-ownership role, not a support position.

What We’re Looking For

This role is for Bazel ownership, not casual usage.

• Proven experience owning Bazel for a production system

• Strong Starlark rule authoring experience

• Experience with large dependency graphs, CI/CD pipelines, remote and local caching, and cross-platform builds

• Strong C++ background with comfort navigating complex codebases

• Experience in complex or safety-critical environments (autonomous systems, robotics, embedded, automotive, industrial, etc.)

• Ability to clearly explain technical decisions to engineers and non-engineers

If your background is mostly application development with light Bazel exposure, this probably isn’t the role. If you were the one fixing Bazel when it broke, it probably is.

Nice to Have

• Autonomous systems or robotics experience

• Safety-critical or real-time system exposure

• Customer-facing engineering experience

• Architectural or technical leadership experience

Team and Growth

• Senior individual contributor on the DevOps team

• Close partnership with engineering leadership

• Clear growth path into technical leadership or ownership of a specialized build/tooling team

About the Work

Production-grade, safety-certified autonomy software deployed across marine, agriculture, automotive (ADAS), and defense.
Current and recent work includes:

• Self-docking boats in production

• Autonomous agricultural platforms

• ADAS development with global automotive OEMs

• Defense-aligned autonomous initiatives

This is real software, deployed in real-world systems.