Principal Infrastructure Engineer

Syndesus, Inc.; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 130,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

25% target bonus

Comprehensive medical/dental/vision benefits

401(k) plan

Paid parental leave

Unlimited PTO

Job summary

A prominent technology firm is seeking a Principal Infrastructure Architect to lead the architectural evolution of a complex, multi-cloud platform. The role requires 10+ years of experience in infrastructure engineering, focusing on eliminating redundant technologies, implementing observability strategies, and leading cloud-native migrations. Located in California, this hybrid role expects onsite work 2–3 days per week. Competitive salary and benefits package including a target bonus and unlimited PTO are offered.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in infrastructure engineering and architecture with large-scale cloud deployments.
• FAANG or Big Tech background is a strong differentiator.
• Demonstrated long tenure at key roles.

Responsibilities

• Lead architectural evolution of a large-scale, multi-cloud platform.
• Audit existing infrastructure to eliminate redundancies.
• Define and drive the data replication strategy across enterprises.

Skills

Kubernetes Expert

Database Reliability

Observability

Automation

Networking

Tools

Terraform

OpenTelemetry

AWS

Grafana

Datadog

Job description

Principal Infrastructure Architect – Cloud & SaaS Platforms San Jose, CA | Newport Beach, CA | Hybrid (2–3 days onsite)

Role Overview

We are seeking a highly experienced, hands‑on Principal Infrastructure Architect to lead the architectural evolution of a large‑scale, multi‑cloud platform. This is a principal‑level role — meaning the expectation goes well beyond senior: we are looking for someone who has been there and done it, who has walked into complex enterprise environments, assessed the landscape, and driven meaningful consolidation and modernization with both strategic vision and direct execution.

The core mandate is rationalizing an environment with too many overlapping systems — consolidating redundant observability platforms, streamlining security infrastructure, unifying log management, and building a data tokenization capability where none currently exists. This person will report into a VP‑level architect and serve as a primary SME for infrastructure strategy.

What You’ll Do

• Audit existing infrastructure to identify and eliminate redundant technology solutions (e.g., collapsing multiple observability platforms into one)
• Develop and drive data replication strategy and log infrastructure management across the enterprise
• Lead proof‑of‑concept work to evaluate and recommend replacement technologies
• Build out a net‑new data tokenization solution
• Serve as SME for infrastructure strategy — planning AND execution; the doing is as important as the thinking

Cloud‑Native Migration & Architecture

• Lead migration of legacy EC2‑based workloads to Amazon EKS and Kubernetes; define standards for multi‑region availability, auto‑scaling, and spot instance orchestration
• Architect and deploy high‑performance API Gateways and LLM Gateways to manage traffic for Generative AI workloads
• Implement Service Mesh (e.g., Istio, Linkerd) for advanced traffic splitting, mTLS, and observability

Real‑Time Data & Event Infrastructure

• Design infrastructure for high‑scale storage engines including AWS‑native databases (DynamoDB, Aurora), OLAP systems, and real‑time databases (Aerospike, Druid) supporting sub‑millisecond latency
• Architect scalable Pub/Sub messaging systems (Kafka, SNS/SQS, Pulsar) to enable event‑driven architectures at internet scale

Observability

• Define and implement a unified observability strategy based on OpenTelemetry (OTLP)
• Integrate platforms such as Grafana, Datadog, and Graylog for single‑pane‑of‑glass visibility across logs, metrics, and traces

Identity, Security & Compliance

• Modernize authentication and authorization systems (OIDC, OAuth2, SPIFFE/SPIRE)
• Deploy and manage centralized Secret Stores (HashiCorp Vault, AWS Secrets Manager), security gateways, and automated certificate management
• Design Zero Trust network architectures; familiarity with SOC2 and PCI‑DSS a plus

Infrastructure as Code & Technical Leadership

• Champion GitOps culture; enforce IaC best practices using Terraform, Crossplane, or Pulumi
• Mentor senior infrastructure engineers and drive Well‑Architected reviews
• Partner cross‑functionally with software teams to ensure infrastructure supports rapid product iteration

About You

Experience & Background

• 10+ years in infrastructure engineering and architecture, with a proven track record managing large‑scale cloud deployments (AWS primary; GCP/Azure also valued)
• FAANG or Big Tech background is a strong differentiator
• Deep enterprise experience: you've walked into sprawling, complex environments, understood the strategic vision, and driven real change — not just recommendations
• Demonstrated long tenure at key roles; we are looking for people who go deep, not candidates with a string of 1–2 year stints

Technical Requirements

• Kubernetes Expert: deep hands‑on mastery of Kubernetes and EKS, including custom controllers, operators, and VM‑to‑container migration for stateful and stateless workloads
• Database Reliability: strong experience architecting high‑scale real‑time stores (Aerospike, Redis) and analytics engines (Druid, ClickHouse)
• Observability: proven ability to build observability pipelines from scratch using OpenTelemetry collectors and visualization tools (Prometheus/Grafana/Datadog)
• Automation: expert‑level proficiency in Go, Python, or Bash; deep CI/CD experience (GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, ArgoCD)
• Networking: deep understanding of cloud networking (VPC, Transit Gateways, Direct Connect) and protocols (gRPC, HTTP/2, WebSocket, QUIC)

Location & Work Model

Hybrid position based out of San Jose, CA or Newport Beach, CA — candidates must be within commutable distance of one of these two offices. Onsite presence of 2–3 days per week is expected. Candidates outside these locations will be considered only in exceptional cases and will face a significantly higher bar.

Compensation

Base salary is competitive and flexible, commensurate with experience. 25% target bonus. Comprehensive benefits including medical/dental/vision, 401(k), paid parental leave, and unlimited PTO.