Sr Software Engineer - Terraform Foundations

International Business Machines Corporation; Austin (TX); On-site; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

IBM Software in Austin, TX is seeking a Senior Software Engineer II with an SRE background to help release and scale our distributed systems powering Terraform foundations.

You will lead release pipelines, improve production observability, and drive cross-team initiatives across Ruby on Rails, PostgreSQL, Go services, Redis, and Sidekiq. The role emphasizes blameless incident response, mentoring, and delivering scalable architecture for large-scale SaaS platforms.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of production experience in SRE, production engineering, or software engineering for large-scale SaaS platforms.
• Hands-on experience building and operating release and deployment pipelines, including progressive delivery, canaries, and rollback.
• Strong observability experience: metrics, tracing, logging, SLOs, and alerting for distributed systems.
• A track record of leading complex, cross-team technical initiatives to completion.
• Clear, empathetic communication and a commitment to blameless, learning-focused practices.

Responsibilities

• Lead work on release pipelines, canary signals, and verification so changes reach production safely.
• Drive deep observability for foundational services, including SLOs, alerting, and log delivery.
• Design and deliver technically deep improvements across Aurora PostgreSQL, Redis, Sidekiq, and Puma.
• Take part in our 24/7 on-call rotation and lead incident reviews so no production failure recurs without a systemic fix.
• Mentor engineers through code review, pairing, and design feedback; improve runbooks, onboarding, and documentation.

Skills

SRE / production engineering

Release pipelines

Observability

Cross-team leadership

Clear communication

Tools

Ruby on Rails

PostgreSQL

Go services

Redis

Sidekiq

Job description

Introduction

At IBM Software, we transform client challenges into solutions. Building the world's leading AI-powered, cloud-native products that shape the future of business and society. Our legacy of innovation creates endless opportunities for IBMers to learn, grow, and make an impact on a global scale. Working in Software means joining a team fueled by curiosity and collaboration. You'll work with diverse technologies, partners, and industries to design, develop, and deliver solutions that power digital transformation. With a culture that values innovation, growth, and continuous learning, IBM Software places you at the heart of IBM's product and technology landscape. Here, you'l have the tools and opportunities to advance your career while creating software that changes the world.

The HCP Terraform Foundations group is made up of SREs and Software Engineers who keep HCP Terraform platform reliable, performant, and robust. Within Foundations, Production Engineering proactively improves the architecture, observability, and operational posture of the platform's foundational services and is Terraform's final escalation point when the platform is in trouble.

We are looking for a Senior Software Engineer II with an SRE background, experience building distributed systems at scale, and a strong interest in release engineering. You will work on the systems every Terraform run depends on, and you will help raise how safely and confidently we ship changes to production.

Your role and responsibilities

Improve release safety and reliability

• Lead work on release pipelines, canary signals, and verification so changes reach production safely.

• Help make database migrations safer and more self-service for application teams.

Make production measurable

• Drive deep observability for foundational services, including SLOs, alerting, and log delivery.

• Turn production signals into prioritized, systemic fixes.

Evolve the architecture ahead of scale

• Design and deliver technically deep improvements across Aurora PostgreSQL, Redis, Sidekiq, and Puma.

• Spot scale pressures before they become incidents, and plan capacity accordingly.

Lead incident response

• Take part in our 24/7 on-call rotation and serve as a senior escalation point.

• Lead incident reviews so no production failure recurs without a systemic fix, in a blameless and psychologically safe environment.

Lead across teams and grow others

• Lead cross-team initiatives, working closely with Cloud Platform Engineering, Agent Core & Services, Web Engineering, and feature teams.

• Mentor engineers through code review, pairing, and design feedback. Improve our runbooks, onboarding, and documentation.

• Present technical direction and outcomes to technical and non-technical audiences.

Required technical and professional expertise

• 8+ years of production experience in SRE, production engineering, or software engineering for large-scale SaaS platforms.

• Hands-on experience building and operating release and deployment pipelines, including progressive delivery, canaries, and rollback.

• Strong observability experience: metrics, tracing, logging, SLOs, and alerting for distributed systems.

• A track record of leading complex, cross-team technical initiatives to completion.

• Clear, empathetic communication and a commitment to blameless, learning-focused practices.

Preferred technical and professional experience

• Experience with Ruby on Rails applications and PostgreSQL

• Experience with Go services, Redis, and Sidekiq.

• Familiarity with cell-based architectures and multi-region deployments.

• Experience operating in regulated or compliance-driven environments, such as FedRAMP.

• Recognized subject-matter expertise, such as internal talks, publications, or open- and inner-source contributions.

• Fluency with enterprise-approved generative AI tools, and the judgment to critically assess AI-generated output.

• Working knowledge of production databases and applications, including how data stores behave under load.

IBM is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an equal-opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, caste, genetics, pregnancy, disability, neurodivergence, age, veteran status, or other characteristics. IBM is also committed to compliance with all fair employment practices regarding citizenship and immigration status.