Senior Site Reliability Engineer

General Motors; United Kingdom; Remote; GBP 60,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading automotive company is seeking a Senior Site Reliability Engineer to enhance the reliability and efficiency of their distributed systems. This remote role involves automation, incident response, and collaboration with development teams to ensure high-quality service delivery. Candidates should possess strong programming skills and a solid understanding of systems architecture, with a focus on continuous improvement and cost efficiency.

Qualifications

• Proficiency in at least one programming language (Python, Go, Java).
• Solid understanding of operating systems, networking, and distributed systems.
• Experience handling production incidents and conducting root cause analysis.

Responsibilities

• Develop tools and software to automate operational processes.
• Lead and improve monitoring frameworks for proactive incident resolution.
• Participate in on-call rotation to diagnose and mitigate production incidents.

Skills

Programming Skills

Systems Knowledge

Incident Management

Communication and Collaboration

Automation Focus

Job description

Join to apply for the Senior Site Reliability Engineer role at General Motors

Job Description

The rapid adoption of advanced software in vehicles marks a new era for automakers and consumers, bringing both advantages and challenges.

As part of Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) at General Motors, you'll join a dedicated team focused on enhancing the reliability, efficiency, and scalability of our distributed systems. We leverage engineering principles to manage operations effectively and build solutions that enable us to grow without sacrificing performance or quality. Our SREs work closely with software development teams, acting as specialists in reliability and production engineering, with a focus on automation, observability, and shared responsibility.

We are looking for individuals who are passionate about maintaining the health of our infrastructure while optimising for reliability and cost-efficiency. This role involves a blend of software engineering and systems engineering skills to keep our services resilient, robust, and scalable.

This role is for a hands-on position as an Individual Contributor (IC). As an SRE IC, you will focus on enhancing the reliability, efficiency, and performance of our services. You'll work closely with other engineers to develop automated solutions, respond to incidents, and drive improvements across our infrastructure. The expectation for this role is that you will maintain a hands-on approach, whether it's through scripting, troubleshooting incidents, or improving observability. As an IC, you will be at the forefront of solving technical challenges and making impactful improvements that directly enhance the quality of service for our users. The role requires a blend of software engineering and systems engineering skills to address complex production challenges effectively.

Key Responsibilities

1. Automation and Reliability Improvements: Develop tools and software to automate operational processes, improve system reliability, and reduce manual intervention.
2. Observability and Monitoring: Lead, implement, and improve monitoring and observability frameworks, enabling proactive detection and resolution of incidents.
3. Incident Response: Participate in an on-call rotation to diagnose, troubleshoot, and mitigate production incidents, ensuring minimal downtime and swift resolution.
4. Collaboration with Development Teams: Work alongside developers to ensure the quality, scalability, and reliability of our services. Practice shared ownership of services in production, fostering a "You build it, you run it" culture.
5. Service Level Management: Manage Service Level Indicators (SLIs), Service Level Objectives (SLOs), and Service Level Agreements (SLAs) to manage reliability expectations effectively.
6. Engineering for Reliability: Strong understanding of common application reliability patterns, with hands-on experience implementing them.
7. Failure Analysis and Post-Incident Reviews: Conduct deep-dive analyses of incidents and collaborate on post-incident reviews to derive learnings and prevent recurrence. Champion a culture of continuous improvement.
8. Cost Efficiency: Evaluate system performance and advocate for optimisations that reduce infrastructure costs while maintaining service reliability.

Skills and Qualifications

1. Programming Skills: Proficiency in at least one programming language (e.g., Python, Go, Java) and familiarity with multiple language ecosystems.
2. Systems Knowledge: Solid understanding of operating systems, networking, distributed systems, databases, and storage architectures.
3. Strong Understanding of System Fundamentals: Deep understanding of how code runs on underlying hardware, including operating systems, algorithms, and data structures. Ability to optimize or troubleshoot code by understanding its execution and the impact on system resources.
4. Incident Management: Experience handling production incidents, including root cause analysis, mitigation, and working through complex system failures.
5. Communication and Collaboration: Strong communication skills, with an ability to explain technical concepts to both engineering and business stakeholders. Commitment to collaborative problem-solving and shared ownership of services.
6. Automation Focus: Proven experience in automating manual processes, building deployment pipelines, or managing configuration systems.

Preferred Experience

1. Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure).
2. Familiarity with container orchestration systems like Kubernetes.
3. A track record of managing or developing distributed systems.
4. Prior experience with Java in production.

Remote - This role is categorized as remote, allowing candidates in the UK to work from anywhere, with reporting to a GM site only if required.

GM will provide immigration-related sponsorship for this role.