Senior Data Center Hardware Engineer
Mistral AI · Paris, France · 7h ago
About Mistral
Mistral provides full-stack AI solutions: from frontier models to developer tools, applications, and compute. We partner with enterprises tackling the hardest problems across high-stakes industries like finance, manufacturing, defense, healthcare, and the public sector, co-creating customized AI systems that they can run on their terms.
We are a dynamic, collaborative team passionate about AI and its potential to transform society. Our diverse workforce thrives in competitive environments and is committed to driving innovation. Our teams are distributed between Europe, North America, Asia and the Middle East. We are creative, low-ego and team-spirited.
The mission
You will be the reference point for the most complex hardware interventions across our sites.
Mistral's compute is our largest investment and the foundation of frontier AI in Europe. As a Senior Data Center Hardware Engineer (L4-L5), you own the interventions that require the highest level of technical expertise: multi-node failures in production, full-rack deployments of GPU-dense systems, and vendor escalations where you speak as the technical authority for our sites.
You'll work end-to-end — compute, storage, interconnect, power and cooling interfaces — across our data center footprint, raising the bar on reliability as our capacity grows. This is a hands-on senior IC role: deep technical leadership and mentorship, no direct line management.
Location: Based at one of our data centers in the Paris region, with occasional visits to our other sites as needed.
What you'll do
Lead complex interventions — vendor-level and multi-node operations in production: full rack builds and bring-up, GPU-dense platform deployment (H100/H200-class and next-gen, including liquid-cooled racks), intricate recabling, post-restart diagnosis. You own the plan, the risk assessment, and the rollback.
Own vendor management — coordinate repairs, part replacements and escalations directly with hardware vendors; hold them to their SLAs; drive proactive fixes from failure trends.
Diagnose at depth — correlate symptoms across compute, storage, interconnect and cooling; read BMC/IPMI consoles, OS logs and crash dumps; methodical root-cause analysis that ends in concrete corrective actions.
Deploy and validate — structured bring-up and validation of new racks and platforms; work with networking and infrastructure teams to take installations from delivery to production-ready.
Lift the team — mentor and pair with L1–L3 engineers on live operations; turn your knowledge into SOPs, checklists and training material; propose and build small automation (Python/Bash) to shorten MTTR.
Work the facility interface — partner with critical facilities/engineering ops on power, cooling (air and liquid), PDU and monitoring (BMS/EPMS) boundaries; enforce ESD/LOTO/PPE and audit-ready change discipline everywhere.
Own spares & reliability — plan spares strategy, track fleet failure trends, and run proactive vendor actions before incidents happen.
About you
6+ years in data center / server hardware or L2/L3 hardware support, including complex hands-on work in production environments (HPC/AI/cloud at scale strongly preferred).
End-to-end hardware expertise: CPU/memory/PCIe (incl. accelerators), NICs, PSUs, drives, network, power and cooling interfaces (DLC included); strong judgment on when and how to escalate.
Diagnostics depth: confident with BMC/IPMI logs, Linux logs and CLI checks; structured root-cause analysis.
Deployment experience: you've taken racks from delivery to production, with concrete examples to show for it.
Vendor fluency: you've managed hardware vendors — RMAs, field replacements, escalations — to concrete outcomes.
Impeccable safety and discipline: ESD/LOTO/PPE without exception; clean, labeled, auditable work.
Communication & mentoring: clear status updates and handovers; able to coach engineers during live incidents with composure.
Mobility: willing to visit our other sites in the Paris region as needed.
Nice to have
GPU-dense platform experience: NVIDIA H-series (H100/H200) or GB-series rack deployments.
High-speed interconnects (InfiniBand/RoCE), RAID/storage (NVMe/SAS/SATA), vendor tooling (iDRAC/iLO/IPMI).
Automation (Python/Bash) for ops tooling and reporting; ticketing (Jira/ServiceNow), inventory/RMA flows.
Hardware qualification, burn-in or factory validation background.
What We Offer
We offer a comprehensive benefits package designed to support your well-being, growth, and work-life balance. Benefits vary by country and may include healthcare coverage, parental leave, retirement plans, relocation support, wellness programs, meal and transportation allowances, and other location-specific perks.
For the most up-to-date details on benefits available in your location, please refer to our Benefits page.
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