Staff Software Engineer, On-Prem
About The Position
CircleCI is hiring a Staff Software Engineer for its On-Prem team, which builds and maintains CircleCI Server, a self-hosted CI/CD platform for customers operating in regulated, air-gapped, and other restricted environments. The role is responsible for making Server secure, highly available, and easier to install, upgrade, operate, and support. It also focuses on the internal tooling and infrastructure CircleCI engineering teams use to package, test, and release services into Server. The engineer will set technical direction for platform tooling, test infrastructure, and release automation; improve customer installation and upgrade experiences; and own the Kubernetes foundation and related tools used by customers and internal teams. The role includes standardizing observability with OpenTelemetry, developing diagnostic capabilities, investigating recurring customer issues with Support and Customer Engineering, and translating business goals into technical strategy with Product and Engineering Management. AI-native engineering practices are expected.
Requirements
- At least 8 years of experience building production backend and infrastructure systems.
- Strong Go skills and practical experience with API design, data modelling, distributed systems, and operational tooling.
- Deep experience designing, deploying, and debugging production systems on Kubernetes, including in customer-operated environments with air-gapped or restricted networks and unfamiliar cluster configurations.
- Experience building internal platforms, tools, frameworks, or systems that improve other engineers' productivity.
- Daily use of AI tools in engineering, with the ability to discuss what has been built, how AI changed the candidate's approach, and its limitations.
- Experience taking accountability for outcomes and making system-design decisions across systems and teams, weighing business needs and documenting rationale.
- Technical leadership experience, including mentoring engineers, providing direct feedback on technical direction, and contributing to reviews and design discussions.
- Experience shipping software that runs in another organization's environment, such as enterprise on-premises software, self-hosted SaaS, or customer-installed distributed systems, and understanding how this affects design, releases, and support.
Responsibilities
- Set the technical direction for tooling, test infrastructure, and release automation used by CircleCI teams to develop and maintain services inside CircleCI Server.
- Make it easier for engineering teams to ship services into Server.
- Improve the installation, upgrade, and day-to-day operating experience for CircleCI Server customers, including through sensible defaults.
- Own Server's foundation, including its Kubernetes infrastructure and the tooling used by internal teams and customers.
- Standardize Server observability on OpenTelemetry and build diagnostics that help operators and supporting engineers identify problems quickly.
- Partner with Support, Customer Engineering, and customers to identify recurring issues and address them at their source.
- Work directly with Product and Engineering Management to translate business goals into technical strategy and make roadmap tradeoffs.
- Mentor engineers and raise technical quality through feedback, reviews, and design discussions.
- Use AI-native engineering practices as a default approach to problem-solving.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
Education Level
No Education Listed
