Staff Site Reliability Engineer

Summary

Join Earnest as a Staff Site Reliability Engineer and contribute to our mission of making higher education more accessible and affordable. You will ensure the reliability, scalability, and security of our systems, develop and maintain our CI/CD tools, and lead product initiatives. This role requires 8+ years of experience in system architecture and strong coding skills. You will work remotely with monthly visits to the Oakland office. Earnest offers competitive compensation, benefits including health, dental, vision, 401k matching, and a robust tuition reimbursement program, and a collaborative work environment.

Requirements

• 8+ years of experience in reliability, scalability, performance, security, and enterprise system architecture, with a focus on toil reduction and best practices implementation
• Strong coding skills in at least one language (Go, Python, Java Spring Boot, .NET, etc.) and deep knowledge of software applications, technical processes, and emerging disciplines
• Hands-on experience with monitoring and telemetry tools (Grafana, Prometheus, Datadog, Splunk, etc.), SLO alerting, and CI/CD tools (Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab, Terraform)
• Expertise in containerization and orchestration (Kubernetes, Docker, ECS) and troubleshooting networking and distributed system issues
• Experience creating infrastructure resources using Terraform or OpenTofu, with formal training or certification in software engineering and 5+ years of applied experience
• Willingness to travel to the Oakland office monthly to collaborate with other Earnies

Responsibilities

• Ensure the reliability, scalability, performance, and security of systems while managing and optimizing infrastructure for efficiency and minimal downtime
• Develop, maintain, and enhance observability and CI/CD tools (Splunk, New Relic, GitHub Actions, Terraform, etc.), streamline deployments, update documentation, and improve internal tools for efficiency and scalability
• Lead product initiatives, conduct resiliency reviews, coordinate cross-team efforts, and manage goals, risks, and resources for successful delivery
• Advise on reliability, mentor engineers on best practices, facilitate cross-team communication, and translate stakeholder needs into technical solutions
• Lead key projects, stay current with industry trends, formalize best practices, and mentor engineers in building and troubleshooting reliable distributed systems

Preferred Qualifications

Formal training or certification in software engineering

Benefits

• Health, Dental, & Vision benefits plus savings plans
• Mac computers + work-from-home stipend to set up your home office
• Monthly internet and phone reimbursement
• Employee Stock Purchase Plan
• Restricted Stock Units (RSUs)
• 401(k) plan to help you save for retirement plus a company match
• Robust tuition reimbursement program
• $1,000 travel perk on each Earnie-versary to anywhere in the world
• Competitive days of annual PTO
• Competitive parental leave
• Remote work, with 3 days a month in the Oakland office