Senior Systems Engineer at Automattic

Job description

Automattic, the tech powerhouse behind WordPress.com , Jetpack , Tumblr , and WooCommerce , is looking for the world’s best systems engineers. On our Systems team, you’ll deliver high availability, performance, and security for tens of billions of page views and over a billion web surfers each month—from 30 private data centers in 30 locations on 6 continents. Help us develop, build, and maintain a leading global infrastructure and share our learnings with the world. As part of a small and vertically integrated team responsible for a huge setup, you’ll have a unique opportunity to participate in all aspects of the management of our infrastructure, including: Maximizing the availability and uptime of all services through proactive planning, sound architectural decisions, automation and rapid response to failures; Making Automattic services as fast as possible for our users through optimization of server-side and client-side interactions, and work with 3rd party services where necessary; Ensuring our services are safe and secure for both our users and employees through a combination of proactive monitoring and enforcement, real-time response, and maintaining data integrity/backups to allow recovery from disasters; Removing as much friction as possible between Automattic developers and their goal of shipping software. When there are questions, we provide answers—usually in a matter of minutes, sometimes seconds; Here's a real-time traffic map. Each color represents an Automattic data center: automattic.com The Systems Engineer position might be a good fit if you: Have maintained large Nginx setups with advanced routing configuration, load balancing, reliable performance and high availability; Have run very large MySQL/MariaDB deployments while maintaining an unparalleled level of performance, uptime and data integrity; Have experience running and debugging PHP applications at scale; Understand the relationship of these services with the lower level systems stacks - filesystems, network, memory management, kernel internals, etc; Have deep operational and maintenance experience with very large and complex public facing web hosting systems; Can autonomously architect, prototype, and maintain solutions to different problems and hosting requirements; Possess extreme attention to detail and strive for unparalleled operational excellence; Are open and available for a 2-3 week post-COVID travel per year to meet up with your teammates in person. Want to know more about how we do things? Watch: We are looking to expand our team and aim to reflect and expand on the diversity of Automatticians currently working with us. At Automattic, we value diversity and know that different perspectives will ensure our team is innovative and creative thinking. Salary range: $120,000-$180,000+ USD. Please note that salary ranges are global, regardless of location, and we pay in local currency. We are searching for high-caliber candidates with the skills and qualities to have a net positive for Automattic. Pay will reflect the potential contribution and the impact you can bring, which may, in some cases, go beyond the range stated for the right candidate. We’re pleased to offer a straightforward, competitive base salary, providing financial clarity without complex variable components. This isn’t your typical work-from-home job: we are a fully-remote company with an open vacation policy. To see a full list of benefits by country, consult our Benefits Page . And check out these links to learn more about How We Hire and What We Expect from Ourselves . #LI-DNI About Automattic Now in our 20th year , we’re the people behind WordPress.com , WooCommerce , Beeper , Tumblr , Simplenote , Jetpack , Longreads , Day One , PocketCasts , and more. We believe in making the web a better place. We’re a distributed company with more than 1500 Automatticians in nearly every corner of the globe, speaking over a hundred different languages. Enriched by this diversity, we’re united by a singular mission: to democratize publishing, commerce, and messaging so anyone with a story can tell it, anyone with a product can sell it, and everyone can manage their communications from a single source. In short, we help maintain a balance in society, creating and continually refining powerful tools people can use to compete fairly—regardless of income, gender, politics, language, or where they live in the world. We believe in Open Source , and the vast majority of our work is available under the GPL . Automattic is a Most Loved Company , an Equal Opportunity employer, and Disability Confident Committed . ( Here’s what that might mean for you .) If you need accommodations during the application or interview process, please fill out this form . We are committed to ensuring an accessible hiring process for all candidates. Learn more about our Employee Resource Groups . You can track your application status and more at MyGreenhouse . To learn about how we handle your data, please review our Job Applicant & Candidate Privacy Notice and our Privacy Policy . All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or status as a protected veteran. View the “Know Your Rights: Workplace Discrimination is Illegal” poster here . Automattic participates in the E-Verify program in certain locations, as required by law .

Requirements

Must-haves

As part of a small and vertically integrated team responsible for a huge setup, you’ll have a unique opportunity to participate in all aspects of the management of our infrastructure, including:
Maximizing the availability and uptime of all services through proactive planning, sound architectural decisions, automation and rapid response to failures;
Making Automattic services as fast as possible for our users through optimization of server-side and client-side interactions, and work with 3rd party services where necessary;
Removing as much friction as possible between Automattic developers and their goal of shipping software. When there are questions, we provide answers—usually in a matter of minutes, sometimes seconds;
Here's a real-time traffic map. Each color represents an Automattic data center: http://automattic.com/automattic-data-centers
The Systems Engineer position might be a good fit if you:
Have maintained large Nginx setups with advanced routing configuration, load balancing, reliable performance and high availability;
Have run very large MySQL/MariaDB deployments while maintaining an unparalleled level of performance, uptime and data integrity;
Have experience running and debugging PHP applications at scale;
Understand the relationship of these services with the lower level systems stacks - filesystems, network, memory management, kernel internals, etc;
Have deep operational and maintenance experience with very large and complex public facing web hosting systems;
Can autonomously architect, prototype, and maintain solutions to different problems and hosting requirements;
Possess extreme attention to detail and strive for unparalleled operational excellence;
Are open and available for a 2-3 week post-COVID travel per year to meet up with your teammates in person.
Want to know more about how we do things? Watch:
Now in our 20th year , we’re the people behind WordPress.com , WooCommerce , Beeper , Tumblr , Simplenote , Jetpack , Longreads , Day One , PocketCasts , and more. We believe in making the web a better place.
You can track your application status and more at MyGreenhouse .
To learn about how we handle your data, please review our Job Applicant & Candidate Privacy Notice and our Privacy Policy .

Nice-to-haves

None flagged.

Application prep

Use the role’s language and application details while tailoring your materials.

Keywords to mirror

Platform: greenhouse
Effort: quick