Senior Systems Operations Engineer at DistroKid
United States
<p><strong>Location:</strong> Remote (USA, Canada, United Kingdom, Europe)<br><strong>Sponsorship:</strong> Not available. We cannot support visas, work permits, or extensions in any country (including OPT/CPT, PGWP, Graduate Route, or similar programs).<br><strong>Salary:</strong> Varies by region — see details below</p> <hr> <h3><strong>Summary</strong></h3> <p>DistroKid is the world’s largest distributor of music to Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, and beyond. Most new music today is released through DistroKid.</p> <p>We are seeking a highly skilled <strong>Senior Systems Operations Engineer</strong> with deep expertise in cloud infrastructure, Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC), and AI-enhanced operations. 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.</p> <p>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.</p> <hr> <h3><strong>What You’ll Do</strong></h3> <p><strong>Cloud & Infrastructure Architecture</strong></p> <ul> <li>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).<br>Develop and maintain disaster recovery plans leveraging AWS capabilities for backup and replication to ensure business continuity.<br>Collaborate with engineering and security teams to improve infrastructure health, security, and long-term scalability.</li> </ul> <p><strong>Infrastructure as Code (IaC)</strong></p> <ul> <li>Design reusable Terraform/OpenTofu modules following DRY principles and organizational standards; implement module versioning and lifecycle strategies.</li> <li>Direct the migration of manual infrastructure to code; establish patterns and best practices for IaC adoption across the team.</li> <li>Implement IaC testing strategies, including validation, linting, and integration testing, using tools such as Terraform-Compliance or Checkov.</li> <li>Architect and maintain complex Bitbucket pipeline configurations for multi-environment IaC deployments; implement pipeline security best practices.</li> </ul> <p><strong>AI-Enhanced Operations (AIOps)</strong></p> <ul> <li>Implement AIOps practices, leveraging AI tools to enhance monitoring, incident response, and predictive alerting.</li> <li>Use AI-assisted development and operations tools (e.g., Cursor, Claude) to accelerate troubleshooting, code review, and documentation generation.</li> <li>Evaluate and implement AI-powered automation to reduce operational toil, improve repeatability, and scale platform capabilities.</li> </ul> <p><strong>Reliability & Observability</strong></p> <ul> <li>Define and implement SLOs for services; guide and/or participate in incident response and conduct blameless postmortems.</li> <li>Implement chaos engineering practices to proactively identify system weaknesses before they impact production.</li> <li>Build and maintain comprehensive monitoring solutions using tools such as CloudWatch and Datadog to track performance and drive optimization.</li> </ul> <p><strong>Automation, Developer Experience & Internal Developer Portal</strong></p> <ul> <li>Develop automation scripts and tools in Python, Bash, or similar languages to streamline operations and eliminate manual toil.</li> <li>Build self-service capabilities for development teams to reduce cognitive load and enable developer autonomy across the organization.</li> <li>Guide the solution architecture and end-to-end implementation of DistroKid’s first Internal Developer Portal (IDP).</li> <li>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.</li> <li>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.</li> </ul> <p><strong>Cost Optimization</strong></p> <ul> <li>Guide cost optimization initiatives; implement rightsizing recommendations, reserved-capacity strategies, and tagging standards for cost allocation.</li> <li>Monitor and optimize AWS resource usage; select appropriate services and configurations to meet performance requirements cost-effectively.</li> </ul> <p><strong>Technical Leadership & Collaboration</strong></p> <ul> <li>Direct planning, decision-making, and execution for infrastructure projects; own workstreams end-to-end.</li> <li>Partner cross-functionally with engineering, security, and product teams; communicate impact in terms of company strategy and OKRs.</li> <li>Provide technical mentorship to junior and mid-level engineers; invest in team growth and foster a culture of continuous learning.</li> <li>Maintain and contribute to infrastructure documentation, runbooks, and architectural decision records to ensure knowledge sharing and operational consistency.</li> </ul> <hr> <h3><strong>Qualifications</strong></h3> <p><strong>Education</strong></p> <ul> <li>Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, a related field, or equivalent practical experience.</li> </ul> <p><strong>Experience</strong></p> <ul> <li>5+ years of experience in systems operations, platform engineering, or DevOps with a focus on cloud infrastructure and containerized environments.</li> <li>Proven production experience with AWS services (EC2, EKS, S3, RDS, IAM, VPC, API Gateway, Event Bridge, etc) and Kubernetes.</li> <li>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.</li> </ul> <p><strong>Technical Skills</strong></p> <ul> <li>Strong knowledge of Linux/Unix administration, systems, and shell scripting.</li> <li>Proficiency in Python, Go, or similar programming languages.</li> <li>Experience with CI/CD pipelines for infrastructure deployments (Bitbucket Pipelines, Jenkins, or similar).</li> <li>Experience with monitoring and observability tools (Prometheus, Grafana, CloudWatch, or Datadog).</li> <li>Demonstrated experience implementing or working with AIOps tools, practices, or AI-assisted operations in a professional context.</li> <li>Experience using AI-assisted development tools (e.g., Cursor, Warp, Claude, or similar) to accelerate engineering work.</li> </ul> <p><strong>Soft Skills</strong></p> <ul> <li>Strong communication skills with the ability to engage effectively across technical and non-technical audiences.</li> <li>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.</li> <li>Demonstrated ability to guide and influence without formal authority.<br>Excellent problem-solving skills with the composure to guide through incidents under pressure.</li> <li>Ability to work in a fast-paced, dynamic environment with shifting priorities while maintaining a high-quality bar.</li> </ul> <p><strong>Preferred Qualifications</strong></p> <ul> <li>AWS Certified Solutions Architect, DevOps Engineer, or equivalent certification.</li> <li>Prior experience designing or implementing an Internal Developer Portal (IDP) using platforms such as Backstage, Port, Cortex, or equivalent.</li> <li>Experience with policy-as-code tools such as OPA, Checkov, or Sentinel.</li> <li>Experience with service mesh technologies (Istio, Linkerd, or similar).</li> <li>Familiarity with Docker and container orchestration tools beyond Kubernetes.</li> </ul> <div id="te-floating-button-container"></div> <div id="te-floating-button-container"></div><div class="content-pay-transparency"><div class="pay-input"><div class="description"><p>This <em>salary range</em> <strong>ONLY</strong> applies to candidates living in the USA for this job. Rates may differ in other regions.</p></div><div class="title">USA salary range</div><div class="pay-range"><span>$155,000</span><span class="divider">—</span><span>$170,000 USD</span></div></div><div class="pay-input"><div class="description"><p>This <em>salary range</em> <strong>ONLY</strong> applies to candidates living in the UK for this job. Rates may differ in other regions.</p></div><div class="title">UK salary range</div><div class="pay-range"><span>£100,000</span><span class="divider">—</span><span>£120,000 GBP</span></div></div><div class="pay-input"><div class="description"><p>This <em>salary range</em> <strong>ONLY</strong> applies to candidates living in the EU for this job. Rates may differ in other regions.</p></div><div class="title">EU salary range</div><div class="pay-range"><span>€55.000</span><span class="divider">—</span><span>€110.000 EUR</span></div></div><div class="pay-input"><div class="description"><p>This <em>salary range</em> <strong>ONLY</strong> applies to candidates living in Canada for this job. Rates may differ in other regions.</p></div><div class="title">Canada salary range</div><div class="pay-range"><span>$160,000</span><span class="divider">—</span><span>$180,000 CAD</span></div></div></div><div class="content-conclusion"><p><strong>What We Offer </strong></p> <ul> <li>Retirement plans (401k, SIPP, etc.), Health insurance, Generous paid time off, Parental leave, Home office allowance, Flexible work schedules, Paid and discounted subscriptions, Regular engagement activities</li> </ul> <hr> <p><strong>About DistroKid</strong></p> <p>DistroKid helps millions of independent artists get their music into streaming services and keep 100% of their earnings. We move fast, stay curious, and build tools that empower creativity.</p> <p>If you want your work to directly impact how artists share their music with the world, we’d love to hear from you.</p> <hr> <p><strong>DistroKid is an Equal Opportunity Employer</strong></p> <p>We are committed to building a diverse and inclusive team and strongly encourage applications from individuals of all backgrounds, identities, and experiences. We value a wide range of perspectives and believe that our differences make us stronger.</p></div>
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