Site Reliability Engineer

Why you:

Customer‑facing SRE role designing, operating, and supporting reliable, observable, and cost‑effective platforms across Linux, Kubernetes, and public cloud. You’ll manage workstreams, automate with IaC, improve SLOs/SLIs and alert hygiene, and support peers.

Data Platforms expectation: bring depth in one area and the responsibility/willingness to ramp on the others in 60–90 days:

Elasticsearch/OpenSearch

Redis (OSS/Enterprise; ElastiCache/Memorystore/Azure Cache)

Kafka–Hadoop–Spark (incl. Confluent/MSK/Event Hubs, Cloudera/CDP/Dataproc/EMR)

If this is you, and you wonder what it would be like to work at Pythian, reach out to us and find out!  

Intrigued to see what a life is like at Pythian? Check out #pythianlife on LinkedIn and follow @loveyourdata on Instagram!

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What you will be doing:

• Improve reliability, availability, and visibility for customer platforms; plan/execute documented maintenance; drive remediation/automation.
• Provide remote support for Linux-based infrastructure across data center and cloud environments.
• Manage the full OS lifecycle, including installation, deployment (Kickstart, VMs, containers, bare metal), patching, and upgrades.
• Design and implement automation for infrastructure deployment, configuration, and operations using scripting (Bash, Pythian) and tools (Ansible).
• Implement and evolve SLIs/SLOs, error budgets, capacity plans, and reliability reviews; harden observability (metrics/logs/traces) and keep alerts actionable.
• Build and extend infrastructure as code (Terraform/CloudFormation), configuration management (Ansible/Puppet/Chef/Salt), and GitOps (Helm, Argo CD/Flux) pipelines.
• Collaborate with support/app/data teams; reduce toil via scripting (Bash/Python) and small tools.
• Data Platforms – pick one at depth, ramp on others:
• • Elasticsearch/OpenSearch: cluster ops, shard/replica strategy, ILM/snapshots, performance/security, EFK integration.
  • Redis: cluster/Sentinel ops, failover drills, parameter tuning (maxmemory, timeouts), cache observability (hit ratio/latency/evictions), persistence/DR (RDB/AOF, snapshots).
  • Kafka–Hadoop–Spark: topic/ACL management, retention/partitioning, connector basics, rolling upgrades; pipeline observability (lag/throughput/error rates); routine automation.
• Facilitate technical discussions with customers; advise on platform roadmaps and architecture trade‑offs.
• Support and cross‑train teammates; uphold documentation quality and internal knowledge sharing.
• Participate in on‑call, escalations, and change reviews; proactively reduce toil via scripting/automation.

What we need from you:

Core

• Strong Linux administration/troubleshooting; Kubernetes fundamentals (workloads, networking, storage, upgrades, security, HA); one major cloud (GCP/AWS/Azure).
• IaC + config management experience; CI/CD/GitOps familiarity; scripting with Bash and/or Python.
• Consulting mindset: clear English (written/spoken), estimation, stakeholder communication, documentation quality.

Data Platforms (depth in one; ramp on others)

• Elasticsearch/OpenSearch (ops, tuning, ILM/snapshots, security/EFK), or
• Redis (OSS/managed operations; data structures, eviction policies, RDB/AOF persistence).
• Kafka–Hadoop–Spark (production exposure; Confluent/MSK/Strimzi; Dataproc/EMR/CDP familiarity), or

Nice to have

• Security/IAM basics, budget/capacity awareness; Prometheus/Grafana experience; diagramming/runbook excellence.

What you will receive:

• Love your career: Competitive total rewards package. Blog during work hours; take a day off and volunteer for your favorite charity.
• Love your work/life balance: Flexibly work remotely from your home, there’s no daily travel requirement to an office! All you need is a stable internet connection. 
• Love your coworkers: Collaborate with some of the best and brightest in the industry!
• Love your development: Hone your skills or learn new ones with our substantial training allowance; participate in professional development days, attend training, become certified, whatever you like! 
• Love your workspace: We give you all the equipment you need to work from home including a laptop with your choice of OS, and an annual budget to personalize your work environment!  
• Love yourself: Pythian cares about the health and well-being of our team. You will have an annual wellness budget to make yourself a priority (use it on gym memberships, massages, fitness and more). Additionally, you will receive a generous amount of paid vacation and sick days, as well as a day off to volunteer for your favorite charity.

Hiring Disclaimer

• The successful applicant will need to fulfill the requirements necessary to obtain a background check.
• Accommodations are available upon request for candidates taking part in any aspect of the selection process.

AI Disclaimer

Pythian may utilize Enterprise Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools or features throughout its hiring process. These tools help us manage high volumes of applications efficiently and may be employed to review applications, analyze resumes, and assist with other recruitment steps. While Pythian uses AI in its hiring process, it does not substitute for human judgment. Our Talent Acquisition Team reviews all AI-generated recommendations, and the system is subject to regular bias audits to ensure fairness and compliance with all applicable employment and human rights laws. All final hiring decisions are made by, and remain the responsibility of, human decision-makers. By applying for this position, you consent to Pythian’s use of these AI tools in the evaluation of your application. You have the right to request a human review of any solely AI-driven decision or to request an accommodation. Should you require further details regarding the processing of your data, please reach out to us.