Head of Ray Core / Ray Ecosystem ( Director of Engineering)

About Anyscale:

At Anyscale https://www.anyscale.com/, we're on a mission to democratize distributed computing and make it accessible to software developers of all skill levels. We’re commercializing Ray https://docs.ray.io/en/latest/, a popular open-source project that's creating an ecosystem of libraries for scalable machine learning. Companies like OpenAI https://thenewstack.io/how-ray-a-distributed-ai-framework-helps-power-chatgpt/, Uber https://www.uber.com/blog/horovod-ray/, Spotify https://engineering.atspotify.com/2023/02/unleashing-ml-innovation-at-spotify-with-ray/, Instacart https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3t26ucTy0Rs&list=PLzTswPQNepXmLUiL4F_1VHrPcCz1OeILw&index=23&pp=iAQB, Cruise https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gj0BqvfX_wI&list=PLzTswPQNepXmLUiL4F_1VHrPcCz1OeILw&index=46&pp=iAQB, and many more, have Ray in their tech stacks to accelerate the progress of AI applications out into the real world.

With Anyscale, we’re building the best place to run Ray, so that any developer or data scientist can scale an ML application from their laptop to the cluster without needing to be a distributed systems expert.

Proud to be backed by Andreessen Horowitz, NEA, and Addition https://www.wsj.com/articles/ai-startup-anyscale-adds-99-million-to-andressen-horowitz-led-funding-round-11661254200 with $250+ million raised to date.

About the role:

Ray Core is the foundational distributed runtime at the heart of Ray. It is responsible for cluster scheduling, distributed execution, fault tolerance, resource management, and the APIs that higher-level Ray libraries and ecosystem projects are built upon.

We are looking for a Director of Engineering to lead the Ray Core Engineering organization / Ray OSS Ecosystem. This role owns the technical and organizational direction of one of the most critical components of Ray and plays a central role in shaping Ray as long-term infrastructure used across the ML and data ecosystem.

This is a deeply technical leadership role. You will partner closely with senior engineers, researchers, and product leaders, and you will be expected to engage meaningfully in systems design, architectural decisions, and technical tradeoffs.

What You’ll Do:

- Lead and grow a team of senior engineers working on Ray Core and adjacent ecosystem components

- Act as a technical leader in the open-source Ray community, setting standards for design, quality, and collaboration. Own the growth and adoption of OSS Ray

- Own the technical vision and roadmap for Ray’s distributed runtime, including:


- cluster scheduling and resource management


- distributed execution and control-plane architecture


- fault tolerance, recovery, and correctness


- performance, scalability, and efficiency

- Drive high-quality systems design and architecture, including RFCs, design reviews, and long-term API strategy

- Ensure Ray Core continues to scale across:


- larger clusters and heterogeneous hardware


- increasingly diverse workloads (ML, data, agents, serving)


- a growing open-source user and contributor base

- Partner cross-functionally with product, research, and go-to-market teams to align technical execution with company strategy

- Develop and mentor engineering leaders and senior ICs, fostering a strong culture of technical excellence and ownership

What We’re Looking For:

- 8+ years of software engineering experience, with significant time spent building distributed systems or systems infrastructure

- 5+ years of experience leading and scaling engineering teams, ideally including managers

- Strong background in one or more of:


- distributed systems and/or databases


- schedulers, runtimes, or control planes


- cloud infrastructure or large-scale backend systems

- Deep understanding of systems fundamentals such as:


- concurrency and parallelism


- fault tolerance and consistency


- performance and resource isolation

- Experience working with or leading open-source software (as a maintainer, contributor, or heavy user)

- Ability to operate as a player-coach: comfortable diving into technical details while leading at the organizational level

- Strong communication skills and a track record of making sound technical tradeoffs in complex systems

Nice to Have:

- Experience with Ray, Spark, Kubernetes, or similar distributed frameworks

- Background in ML systems, data systems, or large-scale compute platforms

- Experience leading teams responsible for widely used, long-lived APIs

Why Anyscale:

- Own and shape a foundational distributed system used by thousands of teams

- Work on hard, meaningful systems problems at scale

- Lead in a strong open-source culture with real-world impact

- Collaborate with an exceptional team of deeply technical engineers and SME’s

- Competitive compensation, equity, and benefits

If you’re excited about leading a core distributed runtime and helping define the future of scalable computing, we’d love to hear from you!

Anyscale Inc. is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Candidates are evaluated without regard to age, race, color, religion, sex, disability, national origin, sexual orientation, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by federal or state law. 

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