Cloud Infrastructure – Site Reliability Engineer (SRE)-Sunnyvale

Alibaba Cloud; Sunnyvale (CA); On-site; USD 104,000 - 171,000; Full time

Job summary

Alibaba Cloud is seeking a Reliability Engineer for its Cloud Product Operations & Reliability team in Sunnyvale. The role focuses on stability, performance tuning, and high-availability design for messaging middleware and cloud services.

You will manage Kubernetes-based deployments, automations, and disaster recovery workflows. The ideal candidate has 2+ years in distributed systems reliability, proficiency in Python/Go/Java, and hands-on experience with Kubernetes, Terraform, and Helm.

Qualifications

• Over 2 years of experience in distributed systems reliability engineering.
• Familiar with high-availability architecture design.
• Proficient in Python, Go, or Java.

Responsibilities

• Oversee stability maintenance, performance tuning, and HA design for cloud middleware.
• Manage containerized middleware lifecycles on Kubernetes clusters (deployments, auto-scaling, upgrades).
• Lead incident response, RCA efforts, and log tracing for production issues.
• Develop diagnostic tools in Python/Go to resolve bottlenecks and compatibility challenges.
• Build automation tools (Python/Go/Shell) and IaC workflows to standardize deployment and DR.

Skills

Kubernetes

Python

Go

Java

Distributed systems

Terraform

Tools

Helm

Operator

Job description

Alibaba Cloud Native Message Middleware Team is responsible for message products, including RocketMQ and other messaging products. We are committed to creating a more stable, user-friendly, streaming, and large-scale messaging platform for the future.

Cloud Product Operations & Reliability

Oversee stability maintenance, performance tuning, and high-availability architecture design for cloud middleware, including messaging middleware (Kafka/RocketMQ).

Manage the containerized middleware lifecycle on Kubernetes clusters: implement deployments, auto-scaling, version upgrades, and resource optimization in K8s environments.

Incident Response & Root Cause Analysis

Lead the troubleshooting of middleware-related incidents (e.g., message backlog, service registration failures) through log analysis, distributed tracing, and monitoring systems.

Develop diagnostic tools using Java/Go to resolve production issues, performance bottlenecks, and compatibility challenges.

Automation & Operational Excellence

Build Python/Go/Shell automation tools to standardize middleware deployment, monitoring, and disaster recovery workflows.

Implement chaos engineering experiments, capacity planning strategies, and failover mechanisms to enhance system resilience.

Strong scripting skills in Shell/Python and experience with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools (Terraform preferred).

Job Requirements

Experience: Over 2 years of experience in distributed systems reliability engineering, familiar with high-availability architecture design, and proficient in at least one of Python, Go, or Java.

Messaging: Cluster management, message reliability assurance, and performance optimization for Kafka/RocketMQ.

Hands-on Experience Deploying Middleware On Kubernetes (Helm/Operator Preferred).

Automation: Ability to convert operations experience into automated solutions and familiarity with various message middleware, e.g., Kafka and RocketMQ.

Preferred Qualification

SRE Practices: Familiar with core SRE practices (incident review, error budgeting, chaos engineering) and experienced in building automated risk control systems.

The pay range for this position at commencement of employment is expected to be between $104,400 and $171,000/year. However, base pay offered may vary depending on multiple individualized factors, including market location, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience.

If hired, employee will be in an “at-will position” and the Company reserves the right to modify base salary (as well as any other discretionary payment or compensation program) at any time, including for reasons related to individual performance, Company or individual department/team performance, and market factors.