Lead IT Engineer

About Neurophos

The demand for new data centers and AI compute is rapidly outpacing the planet's energy capacity. Digital solutions are hitting a power wall as we approach the physical limits of traditional silicon. Conquering this bottleneck means rethinking the fundamental architecture of inference compute. The industry's current path can't meet the need, so we're taking a different approach.

Instead of traditional electronic circuits, we use silicon photonics and an active, programmable metasurface to perform matrix multiplications at the speed of light. Our optical cells are 10,000x smaller than traditional photonic components, enabling unprecedented density. By using photonics instead of electricity, our chips become more efficient as they scale. This architecture will deliver up to 100 times the energy efficiency of existing solutions while significantly improving performance for large-scale AI inference.

We’ve assembled a world-class team of industry veterans and recently raised a $110M Series A led by Gates Frontier. Participants include M12 (Microsoft’s Venture Fund), Carbon Direct Capital, Aramco Ventures, Bosch Ventures, Tectonic Ventures, Space Capital, and others.

Join us and shape the future of computing!

Location: Austin, TX or Sunnyvale, CA. Full-time onsite position.

Reports To
: SVP of Engineering

FLSA Status
:
Exempt

We are seeking a hands‑on Lead IT Engineer to own Neurophos's IT infrastructure across our Sunnyvale and Austin sites. Today, we operate a co‑managed model: an external managed service provider (MSP) delivers help desk support, endpoint protection, and around‑the‑clock security monitoring. Our intent is to bring IT and security operations in-house as we scale, and this role is the first step in that plan.

You will start by owning architecture, engineering infrastructure, and the systems our silicon and photonics teams touch every day, while directing the MSP for commodity operations. Over time, you will decide what to insource, in what order, with what staffing, and execute that transition. The immediate priority is the private Linux compute environment behind our EDA/CAD and simulation workloads, our developer platform, our identity architecture, and the network design that keeps lab, corporate, and customer‑facing data properly separated.

Much of this does not exist yet. You will define it as the company scales from 50 to 150+ people.

This is a lead role by design. You are the senior‑most IT voice in the company from day one and the intended future owner of the IT function and its team.

Private Cloud & Engineering Compute

• Install, configure, and maintain on‑premises Linux servers and clusters supporting EDA/CAD tools, simulation, and performance modeling.

• Operate shared storage, tiering, snapshots, and backup, with restore procedures that are durable and scalable.

• Manage batch scheduling and resource sharing, floating license servers, and queue capacity planning.

• Apply configuration management and infrastructure‑as‑code practices. Own patch and lifecycle cadence for Linux instances.

• Forecast compute, storage, and license demand ahead of program milestones.

Identity and Developer Platform

• Own SSO and identity provider administration in Okta, application onboarding via SAML, SCIM provisioning, group and role design, and MFA policy.

• Administer Git Hub Enterprise. Own configuration and data governance for Google Workspace and Drive, Dropbox, and Atlassian, including sharing controls, retention, and external‑collaborator policy.

• Administer engineering and AI tooling, own license inventory, utilization tracking, and renewals.

Public Cloud

• Administer cloud storage and compute, including account and project structure, IAM, networking, and machine images.

• Own cloud cost visibility, spend control, and report spend.

• Manage hybrid connectivity between both sites and cloud environments.

Network Architecture & Operations

• Own wired and wireless network design at both sites: switching, VLAN, firewalls, VPN, and remote access.

• Manage ISPs, circuit provisioning, and networking for new space and site build‑outs. The MSP handles monitoring and first‑line response;…