Site Reliability Engineer - System Service Global

ByteDance; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 162,000 - 388,000; Full time

Job summary

ByteDance is seeking a self-motivated system engineer with an SRE mindset to manage large-scale Linux host infrastructure across non-China data centers. You will own deployment architectures, fleet health, and core services like DNS, NTP, DHCP, and Kerberos.

Collaborate with network and security teams to meet evolving business demands while driving reliability improvements through SLOs, incident response, and post-mortems.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or higher in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science or related majors.
• Solid experience managing large-scale Linux hosts, OS deployment, configuration management, patching, and fleet operations.
• Hands-on knowledge of core data center services: DNS (BIND/PowerDNS), NTP, DHCP, NAT, APT repository management, and Kerberos.
• Proficiency with DevOps tooling and configuration management tools (e.g., Ansible, Salt, Puppet) and CI/CD pipelines.
• Familiarity with SRE principles, SLO/SLI, error budgets, and blameless post-mortems.
• Understanding of high-availability design patterns and disaster recovery.

Responsibilities

• Manage and maintain large-scale host infrastructure across ByteDance's non-China data centers, including OS lifecycle management, configuration standardization, and fleet health monitoring.
• Own reliability and availability of core data center services such as DNS, NTP, DHCP, NAT, APT repository, and Kerberos authentication.
• Design and implement deployment architectures for foundational services with high availability, fault tolerance, and multi-region disaster recovery.
• Develop and enforce SLOs for managed services; lead incident response, root cause analysis, and post-mortems to drive reliability improvements.
• Collaborate with network, security, and application teams to meet evolving business demands.
• Identify automation opportunities across host management and service operations; drive tooling and process improvements to reduce toil and increase efficiency.

Skills

SRE mindset

DevOps

Linux administration

Incident response

Automation

Education

Bachelor’s degree or higher in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science or related majors

Tools

Ansible

Salt

Puppet

CI/CD pipelines

DNS

NTP

Kerberos

Job description

Responsibilities

The Global System Service team owns the infrastructure services and management solutions that power ByteDance's data centers outside of China — from day-to-day operations to long-term architecture design and maintenance. The team specializes in composing end-to-end solutions by drawing on both open-source community tools and in-house developed products, tailored to both the business requirements and the operational complexities of large-scale infrastructure across ByteDance's non-China regions. Our mission is to deliver efficient infrastructure solutions and a stable, secure system environment for ByteDance's global business.

We are looking for a self-motivated system engineer that is equipped with SRE mindset and DevOps skills. Your responsibilities will include:

• Manage and maintain large-scale host infrastructure across ByteDance's non-China data centers, covering OS lifecycle management, configuration standardization, and fleet-wide health monitoring.


• Own the reliability and availability of core data center foundational services, including DNS, NTP, DHCP, NAT, APT repository, and Kerberos authentication.


• Design and implement deployment architectures for foundational services, ensuring high availability, fault tolerance, and disaster recovery across regions.


• Develop and enforce SLOs for managed services; lead incident response, root cause analysis, and post-mortem reviews to drive continuous reliability improvements.


• Collaborate with network, security, and application teams to ensure foundational services meet the evolving demands of global business growth.


• Identify automation opportunities across host management and service operations; drive tooling and process improvements to reduce toil and increase operational efficiency.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree or higher in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science or related majors.


• Solid experience in large-scale Linux host management, including OS deployment, configuration management, patching, and fleet operations.


• Strong hands‑on knowledge of core data center foundational services: DNS (BIND/PowerDNS), NTP, DHCP, NAT, APT repository management, and Kerberos.


• Proficiency with DevOps tooling, including configuration management tools (e.g., Ansible, Salt, Puppet) and CI/CD pipelines.


• Familiarity with SRE principles and practices, including SLO/SLI definition, error budget management, and blameless post-mortems.


• Solid understanding of high availability design patterns, active-active/active-passive architectures, and disaster recovery strategies.


• Strong troubleshooting skills across the Linux system stack and network layer.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience managing host fleets at scale (thousands of nodes or above) in a production environment.


• Scripting or development experience in Python, Go, or Bash for automation and tooling.


• Exposure to hybrid or multi-region data center environments.

About Us

Founded in 2012, ByteDance's mission is to inspire creativity and enrich life. With a suite of more than a dozen products, including TikTok, Lemon8, CapCut and Pico as well as platforms specific to the China market, including Toutiao, Douyin, and Xigua, ByteDance has made it easier and more fun for people to connect with, consume, and create content.

Why Join ByteDance

Inspiring creativity is at the core of ByteDance's mission. Our innovative products are built to help people authentically express themselves, discover and connect – and our global, diverse teams make that possible. Together, we create value for our communities, inspire creativity and enrich life - a mission we work towards every day.

As ByteDancers, we strive to do great things with great people. We lead with curiosity, humility, and a desire to make impact in a rapidly growing tech company. By constantly iterating and fostering an \"Always Day 1\" mindset, we achieve meaningful breakthroughs for ourselves, our Company, and our users. When we create and grow together, the possibilities are limitless. Join us.

Diversity & Inclusion

ByteDance is committed to creating an inclusive space where employees are valued for their skills, experiences, and unique perspectives. Our platform connects people from across the globe and so does our workplace. At ByteDance, our mission is to inspire creativity and enrich life. To achieve that goal, we are committed to celebrating our diverse voices and to creating an environment that reflects the many communities we reach. We are passionate about this and hope you are too.

Reasonable Accommodation

ByteDance is committed to providing reasonable accommodations in our recruitment processes for candidates with disabilities, pregnancy, sincerely held religious beliefs or other reasons protected by applicable laws. If you need assistance or a reasonable accommodation, please reach out to us at https://tinyurl.com/RA-request

Job Information

【For Pay Transparency】Compensation Description (Annually)

The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $162000 - $387600 annually.

Compensation may vary outside of this range depending on a number of factors, including a candidate’s qualifications, skills, competencies and experience, and location. Base pay is one part of the Total Package that is provided to compensate and recognize employees for their work, and this role may be eligible for additional discretionary bonuses/incentives, and restricted stock units.

Benefits may vary depending on the nature of employment and the country work location. Employees have day one access to medical, dental, and vision insurance, a 401(k) savings plan with company match, paid parental leave, short-term and long-term disability coverage, life insurance, wellbeing benefits, among others. Employees also receive 10 paid holidays per year, 10 paid sick days per year and 17 days of Paid Personal Time (prorated upon hire with increasing accruals by tenure).

The Company reserves the right to modify or change these benefits programs at any time, with or without notice.

For Los Angeles County (unincorporated) Candidates:

Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with all federal, state, and local laws including the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers and the California Fair Chance Act. Our company believes that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship on the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of the conditional offer of employment:

1. Interacting and occasionally having unsupervised contact with internal/external clients and/or colleagues;


2. Appropriately handling and managing confidential information including proprietary and trade secret information and access to information technology systems; and


3. Exercising sound judgment.