Senior Systems Operations Engineer, DistroKid

• We are seeking a highly skilled Senior Systems Operations Engineer with deep expertise in cloud infrastructure, Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC), and AI-enhanced operations
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, a related field, or equivalent practical experience
• 5+ years of experience in systems operations, platform engineering, or DevOps with a focus on cloud infrastructure and containerized environments
• Proven production experience with AWS services (EC2, EKS, S3, RDS, IAM, VPC, API Gateway, Event Bridge, etc) and Kubernetes
• 5+ years of hands-on experience with Infrastructure as Code tools, specifically Terraform and/or OpenTofu, including module design, state management, remote backends, and IaC testing
• Strong knowledge of Linux/Unix administration, systems, and shell scripting
• Proficiency in Python, Go, or similar programming languages
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines for infrastructure deployments (Bitbucket Pipelines, Jenkins, or similar)
• Experience with monitoring and observability tools (Prometheus, Grafana, CloudWatch, or Datadog)
• Demonstrated experience implementing or working with AIOps tools, practices, or AI-assisted operations in a professional context
• Experience using AI-assisted development tools (e.g., Cursor, Warp, Claude, or similar) to accelerate engineering work
• Strong communication skills with the ability to engage effectively across technical and non-technical audiences
• Practices open, transparent, and proactive communication in a fully remote environment; defaults to over-communication to keep distributed teammates informed and aligned across time zones and async workflows
• Demonstrated ability to guide and influence without formal authority
• Excellent problem-solving skills with the composure to guide through incidents under pressure
• Ability to work in a fast-paced, dynamic environment with shifting priorities while maintaining a high-quality bar

Desirable

• This role is a critical technical leadership position on the Systems Operations (SysOps) team, responsible for architecting and managing our cloud environment, driving IaC maturity, and integrating AI-powered practices that improve reliability, reduce toil, and scale our operational capabilities
• You will serve as a subject matter expert in infrastructure domains, own complex workstreams end-to-end, and partner strategically with peers, engineering teams, and guidance to deliver impactful outcomes across the organization
• This is a fully remote position, and success in the role depends on clear, open, and proactive communication to keep distributed teammates informed, aligned, and unblocked
• Design, deploy, and manage scalable and highly available cloud infrastructure on AWS, with deep expertise in core services (EC2, EKS, S3, RDS, IAM, VPC, and beyond)
• Develop and maintain disaster recovery plans leveraging AWS capabilities for backup and replication to ensure business continuity
• Collaborate with engineering and security teams to improve infrastructure health, security, and long-term scalability
• Design reusable Terraform/OpenTofu modules following DRY principles and organizational standards; implement module versioning and lifecycle strategies
• Direct the migration of manual infrastructure to code; establish patterns and best practices for IaC adoption across the team
• Implement IaC testing strategies, including validation, linting, and integration testing, using tools such as Terraform-Compliance or Checkov
• Architect and maintain complex Bitbucket pipeline configurations for multi-environment IaC deployments; implement pipeline security best practices
• Implement AIOps practices, leveraging AI tools to enhance monitoring, incident response, and predictive alerting
• Use AI-assisted development and operations tools (e.g., Cursor, Claude) to accelerate troubleshooting, code review, and documentation generation
• Evaluate and implement AI-powered automation to reduce operational toil, improve repeatability, and scale platform capabilities
• Define and implement SLOs for services; guide and/or participate in incident response and conduct blameless postmortems
• Implement chaos engineering practices to proactively identify system weaknesses before they impact production
• Build and maintain comprehensive monitoring solutions using tools such as CloudWatch and Datadog to track performance and drive optimization
• Develop automation scripts and tools in Python, Bash, or similar languages to streamline operations and eliminate manual toil
• Build self-service capabilities for development teams to reduce cognitive load and enable developer autonomy across the organization
• Guide the solution architecture and end-to-end implementation of DistroKid’s first Internal Developer Portal (IDP)
• Define the IDP roadmap and success criteria in partnership with engineering leadership; establish golden paths, service catalogs, and self-service workflows that reduce deployment friction and accelerate developer productivity
• Drive adoption of the IDP across engineering teams; gather feedback, iterate on the platform, and measure impact through developer experience metrics and reduced time-to-deploy
• Guide cost optimization initiatives; implement rightsizing recommendations, reserved-capacity strategies, and tagging standards for cost allocation
• Monitor and optimize AWS resource usage; select appropriate services and configurations to meet performance requirements cost-effectively
• Direct planning, decision-making, and execution for infrastructure projects; own workstreams end-to-end
• Partner cross-functionally with engineering, security, and product teams; communicate impact in terms of company strategy and OKRs
• Provide technical mentorship to junior and mid-level engineers; invest in team growth and foster a culture of continuous learning
• Maintain and contribute to infrastructure documentation, runbooks, and architectural decision records to ensure knowledge sharing and operational consistency