Software Engineer 2, Platform

CJ; Santa Barbara (CA); Hybrid; USD 73,000 - 108,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid work (3 days in office)

401k matching

Wellness programs

Medical, dental, and vision coverage

Employee Referral Program

Job summary

CJ Engineering is building and operating CJ's production systems across multiple AWS regions. You will contribute to the EngExp platform, focusing on observability, Kubernetes clusters, CI/CD pipelines, and secure access in a hands-on, end-to-end role.

We value curiosity about real systems, learning how they fail, and growing deep in operations. Collaboration, pair programming, and knowledge sharing are core to our approach within a supportive team.

Qualifications

• 1-2 years of experience in software or infrastructure engineering.
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience.

Responsibilities

• Deliver well-scoped platform work end to end.
• Write and review infrastructure-as-code with Terraform for AWS resources.
• Build and maintain GitLab CI/CD pipelines and GitOps with ArgoCD.
• Add and tune observability with Prometheus and Grafana.
• Automate recurring requests (ingress, DNS, IAM) and investigate incidents.

Skills

Teamwork

Problem solving

Effective communication

Pair programming

Curiosity about systems

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience

Tools

Kubernetes

Terraform

GitLab CI/CD

ArgoCD

Nexus

Prometheus

Grafana

OpenTelemetry

Vault

Job description

Welcome to Our World

We’ve been leading the charge in the affiliate industry from day one—establishing performance marketing and paving the way for future innovations. We're known for maintaining one of the largest, most reliable partnership platforms with impeccable, personalized service.

Company Description

Welcome to Our World

We’ve been leading the charge in the affiliate industry from day one—establishing performance marketing and paving the way for future innovations. We're known for maintaining one of the largest, most reliable partnership platforms with impeccable, personalized service.

Founded in Santa Barbara, California in 1998, CJ (formerly Commission Junction) stands as the most trusted name in performance marketing. We specialize in building partnerships between top brands and reputable publishers to drive revenue and business growth. CJ’s industry‑leading solutions make us the platform of choice for over 3,800 global brands across sectors like retail, travel, finance, technology, and home services. As part of Publicis Groupe, our savvy data capabilities, cutting‑edge tech, and strategic expertise facilitate genuine connections, allowing brands to reach consumers wherever they are.

A Quick Peek at Affiliate Marketing

Think back to your last online purchase. Did an influencer tip you off about a great product and offer a discount? Or perhaps you relied on a trusted review site to make your decision? Whatever path you took, affiliate publishers likely played a role by influencing, informing, or helping you find the best deal. CJ connects brands with these publishers, creating valuable resources for shoppers like you.

Overview

You must be work authorized in the United States without the need for employer sponsorship.

This is a hybrid role requiring 3 days a week in a CJ office location (www.cj.com).

About CJ Engineering

Are we a good match for you?

At CJ, we are passionate about software engineering. We build exciting software, with quality and maintainability in mind. We believe in common sense, simplicity, and efficiency. We practice critical thinking, challenge each other no matter the title, and believe in the wisdom of the team.

That makes us Engineers and not just developers. Here are some of the principles that set CJ engineers apart.

• Engineering autonomy: Here, business decisions are made by business people, and technical decisions are made by technical people.
• Full stack: Expect to be involved and to gain competence in every aspect of software engineering, from frontend, to database, to requirements analysis, to testing, to helping choose technologies.
• Clean, Maintainable code: Code is read more often than it is written, so we put in the effort to write it well in the first place.
• Pairing: The highest quality code is produced by close collaboration, so we pair by default.
• TDD: Quality is baked into our process through Test Driven Development
• Ownership: Engineers own the full lifecycle of what they build—from design and implementation to deployment, monitoring, production support, and on‑call rotations. If we build it, we support it.
• Operational Excellence: We embrace Infrastructure as Code, CI/CD, automation, and observability to build reliable systems and deliver software safely, efficiently, and at scale.
• We believe in Agile values, and incremental development. We constantly experiment, retrospect, and adjust.
• We are committed to finding out how AI can amplify our productivity. We view AI as a force multiplier, not a replacement for good engineering.

If this sounds exciting, we want to hear from you!

As a Software Engineer 2 on the Engineering Experience (EngExp) platform team, you help run and improve the platform that powers CJ's production systems across multiple AWS regions. "Platform" here is broad - it is the Kubernetes clusters, but also the observability stack every squad depends on, the CI/CD and artifact infrastructure their builds run through, the AWS networking that connects them, and the secrets and access systems that gate them. EngExp owns all of it. This is a hands‑on, operationally‑focused role: you'll take on well‑scoped work across these systems, ship it end to end, and build real depth in them with senior engineers alongside you. We are looking for someone genuinely curious about how these systems work under the hood and eager to grow into owning them.

Responsibilities

The Systems You Work On:

EngExp Owns The Systems Below. You'll Contribute To Operating Them And Build Depth In Them Over Time, Starting With Guidance From Senior Engineers

• Observability & monitoring — Prometheus, Alertmanager, Grafana, and OpenTelemetry across production regions. You'll add and tune metrics, dashboards, and alert rules, and learn how Prometheus and Alertmanager actually behave at scale - cardinality, recording rules, and alert routing. This is real depth to grow into, not just dashboard‑building.
• Kubernetes & cloud infrastructure — multi‑region EKS clusters: routine maintenance, node group changes, controller upgrades, and add‑on configuration, with senior engineers alongside.
• AWS networking — VPCs, subnets and CIDR management, security groups, and Route53. You'll help keep prod networking healthy and learn the multi‑region topology.
• CI/CD & artifact management — GitLab CI/CD pipelines, GitOps delivery through ArgoCD, and the Nexus artifact repository.
• Access & identity — IAM roles and service accounts for apps in the clusters, Vault‑managed secrets, and fulfilling access requests - then helping turn the repetitive ones into self‑service.
• Cost observability — OpenCost and cleanup work (e.g. orphaned EBS volumes) so cost is attributable rather than shared overhead.

What You'll Do

• Pick up well‑scoped platform work across the systems above and ship it end to end
• Build and maintain GitLab CI/CD pipelines and GitOps delivery through ArgoCD
• Write and review infrastructure‑as‑code with Terraform for AWS resources
• Add and tune observability - Prometheus metrics, Grafana dashboards, Alertmanager rules
• Help fulfill and then automate recurring requests (ingress, DNS, service accounts, IAM roles)
• Help investigate platform incidents and document what you learn
• Learn to recognize common failure modes (IP exhaustion, resource limits, reconciliation lag) and elevate them early

Technologies We Use

• Kubernetes / EKS (multi‑cluster, multi‑region), Karpenter, cert‑manager, external‑dns
• Prometheus, Alertmanager, Grafana, OpenTelemetry (and long‑term storage / sharding for Prometheus)
• AWS networking (VPC, VPC peering, Transit Gateway, Route53, NAT Gateway, security groups, subnet/CIDR design across accounts and regions)
• Terraform, AWS (IAM, EKS, S3, EBS)
• ArgoCD, GitLab CI/CD, Nexus (artifact registry), Docker, container image build pipelines
• Vault, OpenCost

Qualifications

What We Look For:

• 1-2 years of experience in software or infrastructure engineering
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience
• Comfortable in the terminal and reading YAML, Terraform, or similar declarative config
• Some exposure to cloud (AWS or equivalent) and containers - production Kubernetes experience is a plus, not a requirement
• Genuine interest in operating real systems - especially observability - and growing deep in them
• Willing to learn how systems fail and to ask questions when something looks off
• Effective communication; enjoys pair programming and code review

Nice To Have

• Hands‑on exposure to Kubernetes, Terraform, or GitLab/GitHub CI/CD
• Any experience with Prometheus/Grafana or another metrics stack
• Scripting in Python, Bash, or Go

What Success Looks Like

• You reliably deliver well‑scoped platform work end to end with decreasing oversight
• You're building genuine depth in at least one system we own, not just familiarity with the tools
• Other engineers find the workflows you touch easier and more predictable to use

Additional Information

This is a hybrid role requiring 3 days a week in office.

CJ is the leader in Performance Marketing. We take pride in our innovative technology, comprehensive data solutions and our people. We equip our teams with advanced tools, training and career development opportunities all to provide modern solutions, strategies and support to deliver high quality results for our clients. We work in an enthusiastic, collaborative team setting that values outstanding performance.

We're a community of creative and passionate problem solvers who go the distance to tackle the tough questions, think creatively, and drive resourceful growth, for our clients—and ourselves. We foster and embody an inclusive and collaborative culture where diverse perspectives are sought, relationships are valued, and people feel accepted with a sense of belonging in expressing themselves authentically. We pride ourselves in having a workplace environment that values both work and play.

Why Our Workplace Stands Out

Apart from offering competitive salaries, 401K matching, wellness programs, and comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage, we provide:

• Flexible time off without the hassle of accrual
• A generous number of paid holidays
• Company-sponsored team‑building events
• An Employee Referral Program
• Annual recognition awards
• Hybrid work arrangements for optimal work‑life balance
• Parental bonding leave
• Backup care options for children and elders
• An employee discount program
• International SOS program for global support
• Business Resource Groups, where employees connect over shared interests to cultivate an engaging, inclusive environment

…and those are just a few of our great perks! Come join us and see what makes our company a great place to work.

If you require accommodation or assistance with the application or onboarding process specifically, please contact [e-mail].

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.

Compensation Range: USD $73,150.00 - USD $107,744.00/Annually. This is the pay range the Company believes it will pay for this position at the time of this posting. Consistent with applicable law, compensation will be determined based on the skills, qualifications, and experience of the applicant along with the requirements of the position, and the Company reserves the right to modify this pay range at any time. Temporary roles may be eligible to participate in our freelancer/temporary employee medical plan through a third‑party benefits administration system once certain criteria have been met. Temporary roles may also qualify for participation in our 401(k) plan after eligibility criteria have been met. For regular roles, the Company will offer medical coverage, dental, vision, disability, 401k, and paid time off. The Company anticipates the application deadline for this job posting will be 9/27/2026.