Remote LLM Infrastructure Engineer - EMEA (Riyadh) — Columbus
Traveler-Friendly Insight
Partially Remote with Required Travel to Riyadh: This role is listed as remote-first (via Toptal) but requires onsite presence in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia a few times per quarter. For digital nomads, this means the majority of your time can be location-independent, but you must be able to travel to Saudi Arabia periodically — plan for 3–4 short trips per year.
Timezone Considerations: The EMEA-only restriction (Arabia Standard Time, UTC+3) means this role is best suited to nomads based in Europe, East Africa, the Middle East, or Western Asia. Popular nomad hubs that align well include Lisbon (UTC+1), Tbilisi (UTC+4), and Dubai (UTC+4) — all within comfortable overlap for synchronous collaboration.
Visa Notes: Saudi Arabia requires a business visa for onsite visits; Toptal/client will likely facilitate this. For your base country, consider digital nomad visas in Portugal, Georgia, or UAE — all EMEA-friendly and within timezone range.
- Lisbon: ~$2,000–$2,500/month comfortable living — strong nomad infrastructure.
- Tbilisi: ~$1,000–$1,500/month — very low cost, easy visa access for most nationalities.
- Dubai: ~$3,000–$4,000/month — higher cost but proximity to Riyadh simplifies onsite visits.
No travel perks or equipment stipends are mentioned, so budget for your own coworking and travel costs.
Summary
We are seeking an Infrastructure Engineer for Air-gapped LLM Deployments to support secure, large-scale software deployments in GPU-based environments. The role focuses on deploying LLM workloads in air-gapped settings and establishing observability with Grafana and Prometheus, with onsite presence in Riyadh required a few times per quarter.
General Information
This is a senior-level role requiring ownership of complex deployments across isolated or air-gapped environments. You will work with GPU infrastructure for LLM workloads, ensuring systems can be deployed, monitored, and maintained reliably at scale. The engineer should be comfortable troubleshooting infrastructure and deployment issues, automating deployment processes, and working with observability platforms such as Grafana and Prometheus.
Location: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Onsite Requirement: A few times per quarter in Riyadh
Tasks and Deliverables
- Design and support air-gapped deployment environments for LLM-based systems.
- Deploy and optimize LLM workloads on GPU infrastructure.
- Support large-scale software deployments across secure environments.
- Implement and maintain observability using Grafana and Prometheus.
- Collaborate onsite in Riyadh to assess, deploy, and troubleshoot environment-specific issues.
Required Experience
- Expertise in air-gapped deployments.
- Experience with large-scale software deployments.
- Experience deploying LLMs on GPUs.
- Hands-on experience with Grafana and Prometheus.
Engagement Highlights
- Senior-level infrastructure/deployment engineering role.
- Work on large-scale GPU and LLM infrastructure.
- Challenging deployment scenarios involving air-gapped environments.
- Full-time, long-term position.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this role fully remote or does it require being in Riyadh full-time?
What is the employment type — contract or full-time employment?
What is the salary or hourly rate for this role?
What specific LLM or GPU technologies are required for this role?
Why is the role restricted to EMEA candidates only?
