Staff DevOps Engineer San Jose, California, United States

Archer Aviation; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 190,000 - 237,000; Full time

Job summary

Archer Aviation in San Jose, CA is seeking a Staff DevOps Engineer to architect, develop, and scale core services, real-time data pipelines, and distributed infrastructure powering our AI products. You will bridge AI models with production-ready systems to ensure high-throughput, low-latency streaming.

You will collaborate with AI Research, Engineering, and Data Science, own the full lifecycle from design to deployment, improve observability, and mentor teammates in DevOps best practices.

Qualifications

• BS/MS/PhD in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical field.
• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience focusing on backend systems and distributed architectures.
• Strong proficiency in Java, Python and/or Rust, with high-performance concurrent backend coding.
• Production experience with stream-processing frameworks, specifically Apache Flink.
• Experience setting up observability stacks (Grafana, Prometheus, ELK).
• Solid experience with Docker, Kubernetes, including networking, storage, and auto-scaling.
• Deep experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and IaC tools like OpenTofu/Terraform and Ansible.
• Hands-on experience with GitOps (Argo CD) and CI/CD pipelines.
• Experience with PostgreSQL, Redis, and high-throughput data storage strategies.
• Able to scale yourself with AI coding assistants while owning code and infrastructure.
• Excellent communication skills and ability to explain complex infrastructure.

Responsibilities

• Architect and maintain highly available backend systems, distributed data pipelines, and scalable cloud infrastructure to support real-time AI applications.
• Leverage IaC and cloud-native tooling to manage production, staging, and development environments.
• Build and manage stream-processing jobs handling global, high-frequency data with ultra-low latency.
• Collaborate with AI Research, Engineering, and Data Science teams to containerize, deploy, and monitor scalable ML models and infrastructure.
• Own the full development lifecycle—from design and provisioning to deployment, monitoring, and capacity planning.
• Maximize system performance, observability, and reliability; respond to production issues with root-cause analysis and blameless post-mortems.
• Mentor and guide team members, fostering DevOps culture and best practices.

Skills

Java

Python

Rust

Backend systems

Distributed architectures

Cloud platforms

Terraform/OpenTofu

Ansible

Kubernetes

GitOps

CI/CD pipelines

PostgreSQL

Redis

Flink

Observability

Argo CD

Docker

Education

BS/MS/PhD in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical field

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

Terraform/OpenTofu

Ansible

Argo CD

Grafana

Prometheus

ELK

OpenTofu/Terraform

GitOps tooling

PostgreSQL

Redis

Flink

Job description

Archer is an aerospace company based in San Jose, California building an all-electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft with a mission to advance the benefits of sustainable air mobility. We are designing, manufacturing, and operating an all-electric aircraft that can carry four passengers while producing minimal noise.

Our sights are set high and our problems are hard, and we believe that diversity in the workplace is what makes us smarter, drives better insights, and will ultimately lift us all to success. We are dedicated to cultivating an equitable and inclusive environment that embraces our differences, and supports and celebrates all of our team members.

What You’ll Do

As a Staff DevOps Engineer, you will architect, develop, and scale the core services, real-time data pipelines, and distributed infrastructure that power our cutting-edge AI products. You will bridge the gap between complex AI models and production-ready systems, ensuring that our high-throughput, real-time data streaming environment is reliable, secure, and infinitely scalable.

• Architect and maintain highly available backend systems, distributed data pipelines, and scalable cloud infrastructure to support real-time AI applications.
• Leverage infrastructure-as-code (IaC) and cloud-native tooling to build, manage, and optimize our production, staging, and development environments.
• Build and manage stream-processing jobs capable of handling global, high-frequency data streams with ultra-low latency.
• Work cross-functionally with AI Research, Engineering, and Data Science teams to containerize, deploy, orchestrate, and monitor scalable ML models and infrastructure.
• Own the full development lifecycle—from system design and infrastructure provisioning to deployment, proactive monitoring, and capacity planning.
• Maximize system performance, observability, and reliability; respond to high-priority production issues with advanced debugging, root cause analysis, and blameless post-mortems.
• Mentor and guide team members, fostering an engineering culture centered around DevOps practices, automation, and distributed systems best practices.

What You Need

• BS/MS/PhD degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical field.
• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience with a heavy focus on backend systems, distributed architectures, and infrastructure management.
• Strong proficiency in Java, Python and/or Rust, with a solid grasp of writing high-performance, concurrent backend code.
• Production experience with stream-processing frameworks, specifically Apache Flink.
• Experience setting up observability stacks (Grafana, Prometheus, ELK, etc.).
• Solid experience with containerization and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes), including configuring network policies, storage, and auto-scaling.
• Deep experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and infrastructure-as-code tools such as OpenTofu/Terraform and Ansible.
• Hands-on experience with modern GitOps practices (e.g., Argo CD) and managing CI/CD automation pipelines.
• Solid experience with relational databases (PostgreSQL), in-memory datastores (Valkey/Redis), and high-throughput data storage strategies.
• Able to scale yourself with AI coding assistants while still fully understanding and taking absolute ownership of all code and infrastructure configurations you commit.
• Excellent communication skills, with a proven ability to design resilient architectures and explain complex infrastructure paradigms to the broader team.

Bonus Qualifications

• Deep experience with Apache Pulsar (or Kafka) handling high-throughput, event-driven streaming architectures.
• Rust experience with async runtimes (Tokio) and message-driven architectures.
• Experience architecting real-time media pipelines using WebRTC (LiveKit, RealtimeKit) with a focus on server-side jitter buffering and network impairment handling.
• Deep understanding of audio codecs, specifically optimizing server-side Opus encoding/decoding for CPU efficiency and low-latency distribution.
• Familiarity with MLOps frameworks, GPU orchestration in Kubernetes, and serving LLMs at scale.
• Background in high-availability, real-time systems, telecommunications, or safety-critical networks.
• Prior experience or a deep interest in aerospace, aviation, or autonomous tracking systems.

We offer a base pay between $190,000 - $237,000. Compensation will be determined by factors such as job-related knowledge, skills, and experience.

Archer is a proud Equal Opportunity Employer

All aspects of employment are decided on the basis of merit, qualifications, and business needs. We do not discriminate based upon race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, gender identity or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.

Archer is unable to provide work visa sponsorship for this position at the present time.