Email Infrastructure Engineer

San Francisco, CA
Full-time
Visa Sponsorship

About the role

About primitive.dev

primitive.dev is building the communication layer for the agent economy. As AI agents increasingly act on behalf of people and businesses, companies need infrastructure to identify them, understand what they need, and interact with them at scale.

We rebuilt email from the ground up for machine-to-machine communication, optimizing the entire stack for latency, throughput, reliability, and developer experience. On top of that infrastructure, we deploy and operate agents for our customers. They begin as a general interface to the business, then learn from incoming traffic and create specialized agents to handle recurring workflows.

What you'll do

Build the infrastructure that makes primitive.dev a full-scale email service provider. You will work across bare metal, Kubernetes, and the mail stack to build systems capable of moving billions of agent messages quickly and reliably. This role spans distributed systems, networking, SMTP, queues, deliverability, reputation, and abuse.

What you bring

  • You have deep experience with Kubernetes, Linux, networking, and production infrastructure
  • You understand email systems, including SMTP, MTAs, queues, or deliverability
  • You are as comfortable writing production software as operating production infrastructure

Nice to have

  • Experience operating high-volume email or messaging systems
  • Experience with bare-metal infrastructure or Rust
  • Former founder

Compensation

$190k-$230k base salary plus equity. World-class benefits.

Full-time and in person in San Francisco, relocation fully covered if needed.

About primitive

communication for agents

Other roles at primitive

Interested?

Let me introduce you to the founders.

Skip the process

Job details

Salary

$190,000 - $230,000

Equity

0.25% - 0.75%

Location

San Francisco, CA

Experience

3+ years

Company

Nameprimitive
IndustryInfrastructure
Team Size4

Funding

Last stage

Pre-seed

Investors

Y Combinator

Founders

Ethan Byrd

Ethan Byrd

Founder

LinkedIn

What happens next.

No applications, no recruiter spam. Just the intro.

01

Confirm the fit

A few questions to make sure this role is the right shape for you. Two minutes.

02

I pitch you to the company

I write the intro, send it to the founder, and handle the back-and-forth.

03

A meeting lands on your calendar

If they’re a yes, I book the chat. You show up — that’s the whole job-hunt.