Principal Site Reliability Engineer - Austin, Texas

Zowta, LLC; Austin, Northern (TX, KY); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

PTO 22 days

401k match

Medical / Dental / Vision

Maternity / Paternity leave

Hybrid work

Office in Austin, TX

Job summary

ShipperHQ is seeking a Principal Site Reliability Engineer to lead the evolution of our cloud platform, reliability strategy, and infrastructure architecture. This hands-on leadership role designs scalable, resilient systems and codifies engineering best practices that help teams move quickly and confidently.

As a Principal SRE, you’ll own the strategic direction of our cloud infrastructure, deployment, observability, and platform reliability; you’ll partner with Engineering, Product, Security,

Qualifications

• 10+ years in SRE/Platform/DevOps or related roles.
• Proven experience with large-scale AWS infrastructure.
• Strong software engineering ability for production-quality code.
• Expert in Infrastructure as Code (Terraform).
• Deep knowledge of Kubernetes and cloud-native architectures.
• Experience with observability, logging, monitoring, and incident response.
• Experience defining and implementing SLOs, SLIs, and reliability best practices.
• Ability to influence technical direction and mentor engineers.
• Experience in Agile environments.
• Strong networking, security, Linux systems knowledge.

Responsibilities

• Own the technical vision and roadmap for cloud infrastructure and reliability.
• Design, build, and maintain highly available, scalable cloud infrastructure in AWS.
• Architect and evolve Terraform IaC standards across environments.
• Design and optimize CI/CD pipelines for fast, reliable software delivery.
• Define reliability standards, SLOs, SLIs, and incident management best practices.
• Lead observability, monitoring, logging, and alerting across the platform.
• Build self-service platform capabilities to empower engineering teams.
• Drive infrastructure modernization incl. containers and orchestration.
• Collaborate with Security to implement cloud security best practices.
• Mentor engineers and promote best practices in cloud architecture.
• Evaluate new technologies to improve scalability and productivity.
• Participate in incident response and RCA.

Skills

SRE leadership

AWS cloud infra

CI/CD automation

Terraform IaC

Kubernetes

Observability

Incident response

Security & governance

Mentoring engineers

Agile teamwork

Tools

Terraform

GitLab

Job description

Principal Site Reliability Engineer

About ShipperHQ:

ShipperHQ is a trusted leader in the e-commerce shipping space, with over 15 years of experience helping merchants deliver better checkout experiences. Founded in 2009, we power shipping logic and checkout optimization for thousands of brands, from DTC disruptors to enterprise retailers, in 150+ countries. Based in Austin with a global team, we’re a fast-moving, product-led company shaping the future of e-commerce logistics.

Position Overview:
ShipperHQ is looking for a Principal Site Reliability Engineer to lead the evolution of our cloud platform, reliability strategy, and infrastructure architecture. This is a highly technical, hands-on leadership role responsible for designing scalable, resilient systems while establishing engineering best practices that enable our teams to move quickly and confidently.

As a Principal SRE, you'll own the strategic direction of our cloud infrastructure, deployment architecture, observability, and platform reliability. You'll partner closely with Engineering, Product, Security, and QA to build systems that are secure, automated, highly available, and built to scale. Success in this role comes from balancing strategic thinking with execution and leading through influence, solving complex technical challenges, and continuously improving the developer experience.

This role is ideal for someone who enjoys building platforms rather than simply maintaining infrastructure and thrives in a fast-paced, AI-first engineering culture.

• Own the technical vision and roadmap for ShipperHQ's cloud infrastructure, reliability, and platform engineering initiatives.
• Design, build, and maintain highly available, scalable, and secure cloud infrastructure in AWS.
• Architect and evolve Infrastructure as Code (Terraform) standards across all environments.
• Design and optimize CI/CD pipelines that enable fast, reliable, and repeatable software delivery.
• Define and implement reliability standards, SLOs, SLIs, error budgets, and incident management best practices.
• Lead the design and implementation of observability, monitoring, logging, and alerting across the platform.
• Build self-service platform capabilities and automation that empower engineering teams and reduce operational overhead.
• Drive infrastructure modernization initiatives, including containerization, orchestration, and platform scalability.
• Partner with Security to implement cloud security best practices, compliance controls, and governance.
• Collaborate with Engineering teams to improve application reliability, performance, and operational excellence.
• Lead technical decision-making for infrastructure architecture and serve as a trusted advisor across engineering.
• Mentor engineers and promote best practices in cloud architecture, automation, reliability, and operational excellence.
• Evaluate and introduce new technologies that improve scalability, reliability, developer productivity, and operational efficiency.
• Participate in incident response, root cause analysis, and continuous improvement efforts for production systems.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in Site Reliability Engineering, Platform Engineering, DevOps, Cloud Infrastructure, or Software Engineering.
• Proven experience designing and operating large-scale, highly available cloud infrastructure in AWS.
• Strong software engineering background with the ability to write production-quality code and automation.
• Expert-level experience with Infrastructure as Code, preferably Terraform.
• Deep experience designing and maintaining modern CI/CD pipelines using GitLab or similar platforms.
• Strong knowledge of Kubernetes, containerized workloads, and cloud-native architectures.
• Extensive experience with observability platforms, distributed tracing, logging, monitoring, and incident response.
• Experience defining and implementing SLOs, SLIs, and reliability engineering best practices.
• Strong understanding of networking, security, Linux systems administration, and cloud architecture.
• Experience supporting high-traffic SaaS applications and mission-critical production environments.
• Excellent problem-solving skills with the ability to simplify complex technical challenges.
• Demonstrated ability to influence technical direction without direct authority while mentoring engineers across multiple teams.
• Experience working in Agile development environments and partnering closely with cross-functional engineering teams.

Why ShipperHQ?

This is a highly fast-paced environment where no two days will look alike. For the right candidate, with the right attitude, there are fantastic opportunities for career progression. We are an agile, fast-moving team that likes to roll up our sleeves and solve some of the biggest issues in shipping. You will learn more at ShipperHQ in a year than you would in 3 years at other companies, thanks to our collaborative learning culture that fosters continuous growth and innovation.

Benefits and Perks:

• Collaborate with a motivated team, directly tying your results to organizational success
• 22 days of PTO plus public holidays
• 401k Match
• Medical, Dental, and Vision Insurance
• Maternity and Paternity Leave
• This is a hybrid, full-time position working out of our Austin, TX office in the Arboretum Area
• Compensation is based on experience

At ShipperHQ, we’re proud to be a team that’s as diverse as the merchants we serve. As a member of the e-commerce community, we take responsibility to empower shops large and small to grow and thrive through the power of technology to heart. With honesty, responsiveness, and innovation at the center of all we do, we remain committed to hiring the right people for the job, regardless of race, background, religion, or eccentricity.