Senior Infrastructure Engineer

Role: Senior IC with Path to Tech Leadership / Founding Engineer.

Location: Northern Virginia or DC metro preferred for proximity to our NTT VA1 datacenter. Dallas, TX candidates are considered with the expectation of semi-frequent travel to Ashburn. Other candidates are considered on a case-by-case basis.

Reports directly to: CEO (Gunnar Catlett)

Mission: Own HypeProxies' infrastructure end-to-end, stabilize our hosting fleet across Ashburn and Dallas, and grow into the technical leader of the engineering team.

The Opportunity

HypeProxies is one of the fastest-growing infra-first proxy and server companies in the market.

We've built:

• Fully owned infrastructure in Ashburn, VA and Dallas, TX

• A world-class brand and reputation

• 1,000+ servers sold and managed internally

• A Proxmox-based VPS platform serving hundreds of B2B and data collection teams

• A custom proxy engine and VPS platform

What we need next is a Senior Infrastructure Engineer who can own the entire infrastructure layer.

A scrappy, hands-on operator who blends:

• Deep Linux and virtualization expertise

• Linode- / Vercel-level infrastructure thinking

• Hosting and ISP operational instincts

• Hardware-level fluency (iDRAC, IPMI, BIOS, BGP, Redfish API)

• Bias toward action and self-direction

• AI-native mindset

• Ability to write code and automate, not just operate

• Extreme ownership

• Documentation discipline

What You Will Own

You will:

• Own Proxmox at scale across VA1 and DA6 (500+ VPS servers)

• Own the monitoring and alerting buildout (fix gaps in hardware and software monitoring)

• Own hardware asset tracking and make it the source of truth

• Own backup architecture (we sell backup services and need it bulletproof)

• Own access control hardening across infrastructure

• Lead the migration from Squid to our custom proxy engine alongside the CEO

• Build runbooks for every standard procedure

• Drive Ansible playbook adoption for repeatable deployments

• Own or delegate response to alerts end-to-end

• Coordinate with datacenter remote hands when physical work is needed

• Visit datacenters in person when on-site work is required

• Eventually lead a small team of junior engineers and interns as we grow

You will be the technical backbone of the company.

Responsibilities

1. Infrastructure Stability & Operations

• Own day-to-day health of the entire infrastructure

• Build and maintain monitoring systems (node health, iDRAC checks, network alerts, etc.)

• Standardize firmware, BIOS, and iDRAC configurations across all servers

• Audit end-to-end and implement automation across the entire fleet

• Implement bulletproof backup architecture for VPS customers

• Drive incident response and post-mortems

2. Documentation & Knowledge Capture

• Build a dependable runbook library

• Document standard procedures: Squid restart, Proxmox node deployment, iDRAC bootstrap, network failover

• Capture tribal knowledge from the existing team and integrate it into documentation

• Standardize onboarding procedures for technical hires

3. Automation & Tooling

• Write Ansible playbooks for repeatable infrastructure deployments

• Build AI-enabled monitoring agents that page the right person at the right time

• Identify manual processes and automate them with AI

• Reduce toil systematically

4. Network & Hardware Coordination

• Work alongside the network engineers on network architecture (BGP, transit, IX peering)

• Coordinate hardware procurement, installation, and decommissioning

• Manage the relationship with remote hands at our datacenter POPs

• Visit datacenters personally when issues require on-site eyes

5. Growth Trajectory

• In the first 6–12 months: prove ownership as a strong senior IC

• In the next 12–24 months: hire and mentor junior engineers and interns

• Long-term: grow into Head of Engineering / CTO as the company scales

KPIs

• Fleet uptime above 99.95%

• Monitoring coverage at 100% of production nodes within 90 days

• Documented runbooks for every standard procedure within 6 months

• Backup system fully implemented and tested within 90 days

• Reduction in time-to-resolve for incidents quarter over quarter

• Migration completed without customer-impacting outages
  
  

You Are a Fit If…
You:

• Have 5-8 years in hosting operations, ISP infrastructure, or B2B colo environments

• Have run Proxmox, proxy software, KVM, or VMware at meaningful scale

• Are fluent in Linux administration, iDRAC, IPMI, and server hardware

• Have worked with BGP, transit, and datacenter networking concepts

• Have written Ansible, Bash, or Python to automate infrastructure work

• Are using AI agents to automate projects and monitoring

• Can identify issues independently and fix them without oversight

• Can hold yourself to high standards without daily oversight

• Want to grow into a tech leadership role over the next 24 months

• Are excited to work directly with the CEO on hard technical problems
  
  

You Are Not a Fit If…
We want to ensure a good fit by being transparent:

• You need clear processes, defined runbooks, and a mature ecosystem to be productive — we don't have those yet; you'll be building them

• You're coming from a 1,000+ person enterprise and expect that pace and structure

• You wait for tickets to be assigned to you instead of grabbing them

• You see chaos as a blocker rather than an opportunity to create order

• You're looking for a clock-in, clock-out 9-to-5 with predictable workloads

• You haven't built or broken something on your own time in the past year

What Makes This Role Special

• You'll own the infrastructure for a profitable, growing B2B infra company at a pivotal scaling moment

• You'll work directly with the CEO on architecture decisions

• You'll have full ownership of your domain — no committees, no design review boards, no political overhead

• You'll grow into a technical leadership role naturally as the team scales

• You'll see your decisions ship the same day you make them

• You'll be a key hire on a small team where your fingerprints will be visible on everything

Compensation & Benefits

• Up to $150,000 depending on experience

• Performance bonuses tied to fleet uptime, project delivery, and customer-impacting incident reduction

• Equity consideration after 12 months

• Health Benefits and standard PTO