Site Reliability Engineer, Data Center Infrastructure

SpaceX

Bastrop, TX

On-site

Who this role is best for

Strong fit for infrastructure-focused engineers who operate mission-critical systems and prioritize proactive maintenance, who are comfortable with on-site work and multi-site collaboration across manufacturing programs.

Best fit for

Candidates with hands-on infrastructure experience and a track record of ensuring system reliability and scalability
— “Design for reliability, stability, and scale; find and remove bottlenecks with measurement and engineering”
Individuals who can translate high-level requirements into technical implementations and take ownership of complex systems
— “Ability to translate high-level requirements into implementations from first principles”
Engineers with a collaborative mindset who can effectively work with software engineers and manufacturing stakeholders
— “Partner with software engineers, manufacturing stakeholders, and site teams to build operable, maintainable systems”

Things to consider

This role mandates on-site presence, eliminating remote or hybrid work options
— “This role requires you to be onsite. Remote and/or hybrid work will not be considered”
Candidates must be prepared for frequent travel to multiple locations across the U.S.
— “Must be able to travel to different sites (Hawthorne, CA; Redmond, WA; Cape Canaveral, FL; Starbase, TX)”
Applicants must meet U.S. Government export regulations, including ITAR compliance
— “To conform to U.S. Government export regulations, applicant must be a (i) U.S. citizen or national...”

How to stand out

Highlight experience with infrastructure as code and observability tools in your resume and interviews
— “Manage infrastructure as code and use observability to provide a complete picture of platform health”
Emphasize your ability to reduce toil and implement proactive maintenance strategies
— “Practice proactive maintenance: capacity planning, lifecycle management, and reducing toil before it becomes an incident”
Demonstrate your ability to manage mission-critical systems with urgency and precision
— “Comfort with mission-critical systems and appropriate urgency and care”

Pace · SteadyCollaboration · HighAutonomy · MediumDecision Impact · Team

Derived from job-description analysis by Serendipath's career intelligence engine.

What success looks like

deploy, upgrade, operate, maintain, and scale compute, storage, and networking for manufacturing systems
design for reliability, stability, and scale

Typical background

3+ years of experience with Python and Python-based development frameworksExperience with Linux operating systems

Skills & requirements

Required

LinuxPythonInfrastructure As CodeObservabilityProactive MaintenanceCapacity PlanningIncident Response

Preferred

DockerKubernetesPostgreSQLClickhouse

Stack & domain

PythonLinuxTerraformAnsiblePuppetDockerKubernetesVsphereQEMUKVMPostgreSQLClickhouseCommunicationTeamworkProblem-solvingProactive MaintenanceCapacity PlanningLifecycle ManagementData Center InfrastructureManufacturing SystemsComputeStorageNetworking

About the role

Original posting from SpaceX via Greenhouse

SpaceX was founded under the belief that a future where humanity is out exploring the stars is fundamentally more exciting than one where we are not. Today SpaceX is actively developing the technologies to make this possible, with the ultimate goal of enabling human life on Mars.
SR. SITE RELIABILITY ENGINEER, DATA CENTER INFRASTRUCTURE
The application software team is the central nervous system of SpaceX. Manufacturing is how SpaceX turns designs into hardware. The compute, storage, and networking that run our factories must be as reliable as the products we build. This team owns infrastructure supporting Starship, Starlink, Starshield, and Terafab. This position will have a direct impact on factory uptime, throughput, and production scale across programs.
The ideal candidate has strong software engineering fundamentals and a passion for infrastructure: reliability, stability, proactive maintenance, and scalability. You understand the system before you change it, solve hard problems, communicate clearly with stakeholders and teammates, and take ownership of work that manufacturing depends on.
Aerospace experience is not required. We value smart, motivated, collaborative engineers who treat teammates with fairness, respect, and support, and who want to take full ownership of challenging problems to help make humanity multi-planetary.
RESPONSIBILITIES:
Deploy, upgrade, operate, maintain, and scale compute, storage, and networking for manufacturing systems across Starship, Starlink, Starshield, and Terafab
Manage infrastructure as code and use observability to provide a complete picture of platform health
Design for reliability, stability, and scale; find and remove bottlenecks with measurement and engineering
Practice proactive maintenance: capacity planning, lifecycle management, and reducing toil before it becomes an incident
Partner with software engineers, manufacturing stakeholders, and site teams to build operable, maintainable systems
Improve the full lifecycle—from design through deployment, operation, and continuous refinement
Practice sustainable incident response and blameless postmortems
Provide high-quality support to manufacturing and engineering users
Communicate clearly with stakeholders and teammates
Participate in on-call and travel to sites as needed for deployments, incidents, and cross-site reliability
BASIC QUALIFICATIONS:
Bachelor’s degree in computer science, information systems, or an engineering discipline; OR 7+ years of professional experience in SRE or DevOps in lieu of a degree
3+ years of experience with Python and Python-based development frameworks
Experience with Linux operating systems
PREFERRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE:
Experience with compute, storage, and/or networking infrastructure in production
Infrastructure as code (Terraform, Ansible, Puppet, or similar)
Containers and virtualization (Docker, Kubernetes, vSphere, QEMU, KVM, etc.)
Databases and data modeling (Postgres, Clickhouse, etc.)
Ability to translate high-level requirements into implementations from first principles
Comfort with mission-critical systems and appropriate urgency and care
Skillful communication with customers, peers, and management
Comfort operating across multiple sites and manufacturing programs
ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS:
Must be able to work extended hours and weekends as needed
Must be able to travel to different sites (Hawthorne, CA; Redmond, WA; Cape Canaveral, FL; Starbase, TX)
Ability to pass Air Force background check for Cape Canaveral
This role requires you to be onsite. Remote and/or hybrid work will not be considered
ITAR REQUIREMENTS:
To conform to U.S. Government export regulations, applicant must be a (i) U.S. citizen or national, (ii) U.S. lawful, permanent resident (aka green card holder), (iii) Refugee under 8 U.S.C. § 1157, or (iv) Asylee under 8 U.S.C. § 1158, or be eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. Learn more about the ITAR here.
SpaceX is an Equal Opportunity Employer; employment with SpaceX is governed on the basis of merit, competence and qualifications and will not be influenced in any manner by race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, mental or physical disability or any other legally protected status.
Applicants wishing to view a copy of SpaceX’s Affirmative Action Plan for veterans and individuals with disabilities, or applicants requiring reasonable accommodation to the application/interview process should reach out to EEOCompliance@spacex.com.

Source: SpaceX careers (Greenhouse)