Senior Site Reliability Engineer - Managed Kubernetes

AI Chopping Block; San Francisco, Northern (CA, KY); On-site; USD 190,000 - 270,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health, dental, vision

401k with company match

Wellness stipends

Commuter stipend

Job summary

Lambda is seeking a Senior Kubernetes SRE to operate and scale our bare-metal Kubernetes clusters across multiple sites. You will manage incident response, develop tooling in Python and Go, and work closely with HPC Ops and Datacenter Ops to maintain reliability and scale the platform.

You will define SLOs/SLIs, automate lifecycle management, and ensure observability and CI/CD pipelines are robust. A strong background in Linux, Kubernetes, and GitOps is required.

Qualifications

• 6+ years in an SRE/ops role with Linux cluster expertise.
• Strong Go and Python programming; GitOps experience (ArgoCD) and Kubernetes operators.
• Proven experience operating Kubernetes clusters in production (on-prem, EKS, GKE, or similar).
• Able to work independently or in a team, and assist customers during incidents.
• Familiarity with observability tools and CI/CD pipelines.
• Experience provisioning Kubernetes with kubeadm or Cluster API.

Responsibilities

• Operate and maintain bare-metal Kubernetes clusters ranging to thousands of nodes.
• Handle cluster degradation, resize, and incident response with fleet tools.
• Participate in a well-managed on-call rotation for critical incidents.
• Assist customers with Kubernetes questions and workload integration.
• Collaborate with HPC Ops and Datacenter Ops on cross-functional issues.
• Use Python and Go to build tooling and automate validation of platform quality.
• Design and maintain scalable control plane services and operators.
• Develop automation for cluster lifecycle management: provisioning, upgrades, patching, deletion.
• Define and implement SLOs and SLIs for Kubernetes services and platform reliability.

Skills

SRE

Go

Python

Kubernetes

GitOps

ArgoCD

Helm

On-call rotation

Observability

Kubernetes ops

Kubeadm

Cluster API

Tools

Prometheus

Grafana

FluentBit

Cluster API

Job description

Lambda, The Superintelligence Cloud, is a leader in AI cloud infrastructure serving tens of thousands of customers. Our customers range from AI researchers to enterprises and hyperscalers. Lambda's mission is to make compute as ubiquitous as electricity and give everyone the power of superintelligence. One person, one GPU.

If you'd like to build the world's best AI cloud, join us.

*Note: This position requires presence in our San Francisco, San Jose, or Bellevue office location 4 days per week; Lambda’s designated work from home day is currently Tuesday.

Engineering at Lambda is responsible for building and scaling our cloud offering. Our scope includes the Lambda website, cloud APIs and systems as well as internal tooling for system deployment, management and maintenance.

What You’ll Do

• Operate and maintain bare-metal Kubernetes clusters, scaling up to thousands of nodes

• Handle cluster degradation, recovery, resizing, and incident response using fleet management tools

• Participate in a well-managed on-call rotation for critical incidents

• Assist customers with Kubernetes questions, workload integration, storage, and authentication

• Work closely with our HPC Ops and Datacenter Ops teams for low-level or cross-functional issues

• Use Python and Golang to create tooling and automate the validation of platform quality.

• Design, build, and maintain scalable control plane services, operators, and custom controllers for Kubernetes

• Develop automation for cluster lifecycle management: provisioning, upgrades, patching, and deletion.

• Define and implement SLOs and SLIs for Kubernetes services, workloads, and platform reliability.

You

• 6+ years of experience in a SRE, operations engineer, or similar role, with a deep knowledge of running Linux clusters and systems

• Strong programming skills in Go and Python; experience with GitOps (e.g., ArgoCD), Helm, and Kubernetes operators

• Proven experience operating Kubernetes clusters in production environments (on-prem, EKS, GKE, or similar)

• Can work either independently with limited direction or as part of a team

• Can work with customers during incidents either via tickets, live messaging, or as part of a larger call.

• Familiarity with observability tools like Prometheus, Grafana, FluentBit, and CI/CD pipelines

• Proven experience provisioning Kubernetes using tools such as kubeadm, Cluster API, or similar

Nice To Have

• Deep Kubernetes expertise: CRDs, CSI, CNI, Kubernetes Operator Coding experience

• Exposure to HPC clusters, AI/ML workloads, or large-scale GPU clusters

• Hybrid or multi-cloud Kubernetes environment experience

• Contributions to CNCF projects or Kubernetes SIGs

Why Join Us

• Work on cutting-edge Managed Kubernetes platforms for AI/ML workloads

• Influence the platform roadmap and help shape operations and reliability best practices

• Collaborate with a highly skilled engineer

• Opportunity to mentor and grow within a fast-growing, technology-driven environment

Salary Range Information

The annual salary range for this position has been set based on market data and other factors. However, a salary higher or lower than this range may be appropriate for a candidate whose qualifications differ meaningfully from those listed in the job description.

About Lambda

• Founded in 2012, with 500+ employees, and growing fast

• Our investors notably include TWG Global, US Innovative Technology Fund (USIT), Andra Capital, SGW, Andrej Karpathy, ARK Invest, Fincadia Advisors, G Squared, In-Q-Tel (IQT), KHK & Partners, NVIDIA, Pegatron, Supermicro, Wistron, Wiwynn, Gradient Ventures, Mercato Partners, SVB, 1517, and Crescent Cove

• We have research papers accepted at top machine learning and graphics conferences, including NeurIPS, ICCV, SIGGRAPH, and TOG

• Our values are publicly available: https://lambda.ai/careers

• We offer generous cash & equity compensation

• Health, dental, and vision coverage for you and your dependents

• Wellness and commuter stipends for select roles

• 401k Plan with 2% company match (USA employees)

• Flexible paid time off plan that we all actually use

Equal Opportunity Employer

Lambda is an Equal Opportunity employer. Applicants are considered without regard to race, color, religion, creed, national origin, age, sex, gender, marital status, sexual orientation and identity, genetic information, veteran status, citizenship, or any other factors prohibited by local, state, or federal law.