Senior Staff Reliability Engineer Director, Software Engineering

Merck•Upper Gwynedd Township, PA

3d•$142,400 - $224,100•Hybrid

About The Position

Join our company as we transform and innovate. We are at the forefront of delivering reliable, scalable, and resilient digital solutions that support critical scientific and business outcomes across our global organization. Our Digital Platforms & Services organization provides the technical foundation powering our company’s applications. We are seeking a highly experienced engineer who brings deep expertise in Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), Observability, and Resilience to help define and mature our reliability engineering practices. As a Senior Principal Reliability Engineer, you will lead the evolution of how reliability is engineered, measured, and improved across IT systems. You will play a critical role in enabling engineering teams to build systems that are reliable by design, while shaping enterprise practices that scale across the organization. This is a highly visible and impactful role with the potential to significantly improve the reliability, resilience, and operational effectiveness of the IT products that power our company’s mission.

Requirements

Bachelors degree in IT, Engineering, Computer Science, or related field
Minimum 7 years experience in site reliability engineering
Expertise in capacity management, system integration, software development, release management, network design, configuration management (CM), software development life cycle (SDLC), system administration, change controls, and solution architecture
Proficiency in designing, managing, developing, and maintaining technological products, particularly in the animal health domain
Strong expertise in hardware, mechanics, artificial intelligence, and software development
Experience in program management, including product definition, development, testing, maintenance, and tier 4 support
Ability to conduct technological and product research and drive innovation
Skilled in developing and managing CI/CD pipelines for product development cycles
Knowledge of performance optimization and server software management
Experience with application deployment to both cloud and on-premises production environments
Understanding of product security, company development policies, and open source usage
Strong leadership skills including strategic planning, entrepreneurship, innovation, and business savviness
Proven track record in coaching and development, talent growth, and execution excellence
Strong commitment to inclusion, with the ability to influence and motivate others
Excellent emotional intelligence, decision-making skills, and a strong sense of ownership and accountability
Networking and partnerships should be a key strength
Data Engineering
Data Visualization
Design Applications
Software Configurations
Software Development
Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
Solution Architecture
System Designs
System Integration
Testing

Nice To Haves

Current Employees apply HERE
Current Contingent Workers apply HERE
US and Puerto Rico Residents Only:
San Francisco Residents Only: We will consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records for employment in compliance with the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance
Los Angeles Residents Only: We will consider for employment all qualified applicants, including those with criminal histories, in a manner consistent with the requirements of applicable state and local laws, including the City of Los Angeles’ Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance
Search Firm Representatives Please Read Carefully
Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA, also known as Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC, Rahway, NJ, USA, does not accept unsolicited assistance from search firms for employment opportunities. All CVs / resumes submitted by search firms to any employee at our company without a valid written search agreement in place for this position will be deemed the sole property of our company. No fee will be paid in the event a candidate is hired by our company as a result of an agency referral where no pre-existing agreement is in place. Where agency agreements are place, introductions are position specific. Please, no phone calls or emails.

Responsibilities

Build relationships across the broader IT organization to increase adoption and maturity of SRE, Observability, and Resilience practices
Define and evolve the strategic vision for enterprise reliability engineering and ensure alignment across product, platform, and ITSM teams
Establish and enforce standards for Service Level Objectives, observability frameworks, and resilience engineering practices
Collaborate with engineering teams to ensure reliability is embedded into architecture, design, and delivery processes
Drive adoption of Service Level Objectives using Nobl9 as the system of record for reliability governance
Lead evaluation and introduction of new technologies that improve reliability outcomes while integrating with existing platforms
Apply AI capabilities to enhance reliability practices, including incident triage, diagnostics, and automation, in a governed and controlled manner
Collaborate within efforts to standardize observability across logs, metrics, traces, and events to improve system visibility and decision-making
Consult and promote resilience patterns including fault isolation, failover strategies, and recovery mechanisms
Guide improvements surrounding incident lifecycle effectiveness, including detection, response, root cause analysis, and continuous improvement
Lead and mentor a community of reliability practitioners to grow organizational capability and maturity
Represent reliability engineering practice in architecture reviews, governance forums, and key IT initiatives
Drive continuous improvement of reliability practices through research, innovation, and feedback from engineering teams