Software Developer IV-IN

Software Developer IV-IN (Openstack)

Rackspace Technology has been a foundational contributor to Open Stack since its inception. The Private Cloud Product Software Engineering organization is looking for a Software Developer IV with deep Open Stack expertise to join our Bare Metal Infrastructure team.

In this role, you will write and maintain custom backends and drivers for core Open Stack projects—Ironic, Cinder, Nova, and Neutron—tuned specifically for bare metal infrastructure deployment at data center scale. You will work directly in the Open Stack codebases, own the full lifecycle of driver development from design through production operation, and contribute improvements upstream where your work benefits the broader community.

This is a senior individual contributor and technical leadership role. You will shape the architectural direction of our Open Stack integrations, raise the bar for quality and reliability in the services we run, and help other engineers grow their platform expertise.

Private Cloud Product Software Engineering at Rackspace Technology owns the design, build, and operational responsibility for:

• Programmatic bare metal infrastructure platforms, including hardware provisioning, lifecycle management, and data center automation
• Custom Open Stack backends and drivers that extend core services to meet the demands of large-scale private cloud operations
• Internal enablement tooling that accelerates product delivery across engineering teams
• The interaction layer between Private Cloud customers and the products and services Rackspace Technology provides

We work closely with product owners and infrastructure teams to deliver meaningful outcomes for our customers. Our services run in Kubernetes-native environments and we own them end‑to‑end— from application logic and driver code to deployment and operational health. We practice continuous integration and delivery, and we take operational responsibility for what we ship seriously.

At the Dev IV level, we expect you to lead technical decisions, not just execute them. That means proposing architectural approaches, driving alignment across teams, reviewing and raising the quality of your peers
• work, and maintaining a strong point of view grounded in real production experience.

• Design, implement, and maintain custom drivers and backends for Open Stack Ironic, Cinder, Nova, and Neutron, targeting bare metal provisioning and lifecycle automation use cases
• Contribute improvements and bug fixes to upstream Open Stack projects, working within the Open Stack community review and governance process
• Own the full lifecycle of your driver and backend work: design, code review, testing, deployment, and ongoing operational health
• Collaborate with infrastructure, networking, and storage teams to deeply understand the requirements that shape driver behavior
• Architect integrations between Open Stack services and internal systems, including DCIM/IPAM tooling such as Net Box or Nautobot
• Establish and uphold engineering standards for driver development: testing strategies, error handling, observability, and upgrade safety
• Investigate production incidents in Open Stack services; drive root cause analysis and durable fixes, including upstream patches where appropriate
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship across the team, particularly around Open Stack internals and bare metal infrastructure patterns
• Evaluate new Open Stack features and upstream developments; assess impact on our platform and make recommendations for adoption

• Ten or more years of software development experience, with at least four years of hands‑on production work with Open Stack
• Deep working knowledge of at least two of:
  Ironic, Cinder, Nova, or Neutron—including their driver interfaces, plugin architectures, and internal request flows
• Demonstrated experience writing, debugging, or extending Open Stack drivers or backends in a production environment
• Strong Python skills, including proficiency with async patterns, testing frameworks (pytest, tox), and Open Stack SDK/client libraries
• Five…