# Beam Expands Infrastructure Fleet with 11 Open Roles Across Hardware and Distributed Systems **Author:** Zero G Talent **Published:** 2026-11-07 **Category:** software **Tags:** yc-hiring, cloud computing, distributed systems, gpu infrastructure, software engineering, operations [Read on Zero G Talent](https://zerogtalent.com/blog/beam-expands-infrastructure-fleet-with-11-open-roles-across-hardware-and-distributed-systems) --- Cloud computing architectures designed around simple microservices struggle to handle modern AI workloads. Running massive, stateless containers for model inference, code sandboxes, and autonomous agents requires sub-second cold starts across diverse GPU topologies. [Beam](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-companies/beam), an AI-native cloud platform founded in 2021, is building compute infrastructure to address these exact constraints. Originally backed in Y Combinator's W22 batch, the New York-based startup has raised $7 million in funding from investors including Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital India, Guy Podjarny, and Jason Warner. While operating with a lean five-person core team, the company is preparing for a significant scaling phase. [GetLatka](https://getlatka.com/companies/beam.cloud) estimated Beam's 2024 revenue at $1 million. The company has now posted 11 open positions spanning low-level systems engineering, GPU data center operations, and compute capacity trading. ## Sub-Second GPU Inference and Agent Tooling Beam operates a serverless inference platform designed to launch GPU-backed containers in under one second. Rather than relying on traditional virtual machine orchestration or standard serverless runtimes, Beam built its own custom container runtime called beta9. The platform serves enterprise customers including Coca-Cola and Geospy, providing on-demand access to specialized accelerator hardware without requiring customers to configure raw orchestration layers. Under the hood, Beam's infrastructure code is written primarily in Go, with Python powering backend APIs and a web dashboard built with React and TypeScript. In addition to core model serving, Beam has expanded into tooling for autonomous workflows. In a product walkthrough video titled [Airstore - The Virtual Filesystem for AI Agents](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtDVmE53RHI), co-founder [Eli Mernit](https://zerogtalent.com/people/eli-mernit) demonstrated Airstore, a virtual filesystem that lets developer agents access contextual data sources and Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers as simple files on a machine. Customer developers also rely directly on Beam's GPU orchestration for high-throughput language tasks. In [Build a Document Extraction API with Qwen2.5 and vLLM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuRcWu5LsOE), Mernit hosted Adrian, founder of Solitude, who demonstrated how his team served 7-billion parameter vision-language models on Beam with vLLM, using fast API endpoints and container caching to process thousands of enterprise documents per hour. ## Founders with Systems and Hardware Backgrounds Beam was co-founded by [Luke Lombardi](https://zerogtalent.com/people/luke-lombardi) and [Eli Mernit](https://zerogtalent.com/people/eli-mernit), who both attended Binghamton University from 2012 to 2016. Lombardi, who holds a degree in biomedical engineering, brings a background combining hardware engineering, robotics, and machine learning systems. Mernit, a former On Deck fellow and hackathon winner, leads growth and customer development while actively hosting technical teardowns and interviews covering feature stores, machine learning fraud pipelines, and inference runtimes. The founders maintain a tight feedback loop with users: all platform customers share a communal Slack workspace directly with Beam's engineering team, making direct developer communication a routine part of daily work. ## Scaling the Compute Trading and Operations Layer To power sub-second container spin-up, Beam must secure continuous, low-cost access to GPU capacity. The company is building out dedicated physical infrastructure and compute procurement pipelines, opening several hybrid and onsite operations roles at its New York headquarters. The team is hiring a [Head of Compute Operations](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-jobs/beam/head-of-compute-operations-116405) ($110,000–$150,000) to negotiate with data center operators, OEMs, and compute providers to evaluate, test, and contract platform capacity, requiring 20% travel to data center facilities. Working closely with leadership, a [Compute Partnerships Manager](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-jobs/beam/compute-partnerships-manager-119710) ($120,000–$160,000) will onboard GPU suppliers to diversify supply, reporting directly to the CEO. On the trading side, Beam is adding a [Compute Trader](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-jobs/beam/compute-trader-117101) ($120,000–$150,000) to match customer compute demand against real-time supply, negotiating prices, deposits, and prepayments directly with suppliers. At the executive level, Beam is hiring a [Chief of Staff](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-jobs/beam/chief-of-staff-113699) ($90,000–$140,000) in New York to serve as the right hand to the founding team. The role takes ownership over key accounts, data center operations, supplier contracts, and hardware supply. ## Low-Level Systems and Inference Research On the software and distributed systems side, Beam is adding engineering depth to handle container images and GPU utilization across multiple cloud providers. Several of these technical positions offer remote flexibility across the United States, San Francisco, or New York. A [Distributed Systems Engineer](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-jobs/beam/distributed-systems-engineer-98387) ($140,000–$200,000) will work on platform engineering with low-level systems development, focusing on container runtimes, OCI image formats, lazy-loading large files from content-addressable storage, and packing thousands of workloads into GPUs using GPU checkpoint restore and CRIU. To handle hardware reliability, an open [Site Reliability Engineer](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-jobs/beam/site-reliability-engineer-98389) role ($140,000–$200,000) will own fleet health, alerting pipelines, and GPU qualification platforms for burn-in and baselining. On the physical networking side, a [Network Engineer](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-jobs/beam/network-engineer-98388) ($130,000–$180,000) will build out GPU capacity across new sites, deploying and validating data center network infrastructure with 50% to 60% travel to onsite deployments. The company has also listed a contractor role for a [GPU Cluster Infrastructure Engineer](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-jobs/beam/gpu-cluster-infrastructure-engineer-114260) ($10,500–$18,000 per month) to stand up high-performance GPU clusters, execute acceptance testing, establish firmware baselines, and secure out-of-band management planes. For platform optimization, Beam is seeking an [Applied AI Research Engineer](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-jobs/beam/applied-ai-research-engineer-99577) ($140,000–$200,000) to lower cost per token and reduce latency on customer production workloads. Facing customer developers directly, a [Product Engineer](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-jobs/beam/product-engineer-116343) ($120,000–$160,000) in New York will build features across the Python SDK, CLI, API, and web dashboard, while a [Head of GTM and Growth](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-jobs/beam/growth-81962) ($120,000–$160,000) will lead commercial outreach, pricing, and channel partnerships. ## Open Roles at Beam | Role | Location | Work Mode | Salary | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | [Compute Partnerships Manager](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-jobs/beam/compute-partnerships-manager-119710) | New York, NY, US | Onsite | $120,000 – $160,000 | | [Compute Trader](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-jobs/beam/compute-trader-117101) | New York, NY, US | Onsite | $120,000 – $150,000 | | [Head of Compute Operations](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-jobs/beam/head-of-compute-operations-116405) | New York, NY, US | Onsite | $110,000 – $150,000 | | [Product Engineer](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-jobs/beam/product-engineer-116343) | New York, NY, US | Onsite | $120,000 – $160,000 | | [GPU Cluster Infrastructure Engineer](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-jobs/beam/gpu-cluster-infrastructure-engineer-114260) | New York, NY / San Francisco, CA / Remote (US) | Remote | $10,500 – $18,000 / mo | | [Chief of Staff](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-jobs/beam/chief-of-staff-113699) | New York, NY, US | Onsite | $90,000 – $140,000 | | [Applied AI Research Engineer](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-jobs/beam/applied-ai-research-engineer-99577) | New York, NY / San Francisco, CA / Remote (US) | Remote | $140,000 – $200,000 | | [Site Reliability Engineer](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-jobs/beam/site-reliability-engineer-98389) | New York, NY / San Francisco, CA / Remote (US) | Remote | $140,000 – $200,000 | | [Distributed Systems Engineer](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-jobs/beam/distributed-systems-engineer-98387) | New York, NY / San Francisco, CA / Remote (US) | Remote | $140,000 – $200,000 | | [Network Engineer](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-jobs/beam/network-engineer-98388) | New York, NY / San Francisco, CA / Remote (US) | Remote | $130,000 – $180,000 | | [Head of GTM and Growth](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-jobs/beam/growth-81962) | New York, NY, US | Onsite | $120,000 – $160,000 | [See all open roles at Beam](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-companies/beam) --- *Source: [Zero G Talent](https://zerogtalent.com), the job board for space, defense, AI, robotics and frontier-tech companies.*