Systems Engineering Manager

POLITICO • Arlington, VA

1d • Onsite

About The Position

POLITICO strives to be the dominant source for politics and policy in power centers across every continent where access to reliable information, nonpartisan journalism and real-time tools creates, informs, and engages a global citizenry. Our mission from the very beginning was to win the audience. We dedicate ourselves to providing accurate, non-partisan, impactful information to the right people at the right time so they can act with confidence and speed. We serve, better understand, and grow our influential audience by creating innovative products and tools that provide limitless value across the globe. POLITICO is seeking a Systems Engineering Manager to lead a small, experienced team responsible for the reliability and performance of our cloud infrastructure. This is a hands-on leadership role, combining technical execution with team leadership to support and evolve critical systems across our US and EU environments. You will work closely with Development, Network Engineering, and Information Security to ensure infrastructure is scalable, secure, and resilient. The role includes ownership of incident response, system stability, and vulnerability management, with a focus on driving continuous improvement across our infrastructure and operational practices. This position requires a balance of technical depth, strategic thinking, and people leadership to successfully deliver infrastructure initiatives and support a high-performing team. Even if you don’t meet every requirement, we encourage you to apply.

Requirements

• 7+ years of experience in systems engineering, infrastructure, or SRE roles
• 2+ years of experience managing or leading engineering teams
• Strong experience designing and operating production systems in AWS at scale
• Deep experience running Kubernetes in production environments
• Experience implementing infrastructure-as-code using tools such as Terraform
• Experience using observability and logging tools (e.g., Datadog, Splunk) to monitor system health, troubleshoot issues, and support incident response
• Strong understanding of reliability, scalability, and performance engineering principles
• Experience partnering with security teams to implement infrastructure security best practices
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to influence technical and non-technical stakeholders

Nice To Haves

• Bachelor’s degree in a technical field (Computer Science, Engineering, etc.)
• Possession of an AWS Certification
• Hands-on experience with cloud-native security tooling, including CSPM platforms and runtime threat detection
• Familiarity with content delivery networks (CDNs)
• Experience leading teams through compliance certifications (e.g., SOC 2, FedRAMP)

Responsibilities

• Lead and mentor a small, experienced systems engineering team, providing technical direction, prioritization, and hands-on support
• Establish and enforce best practices around security, scalability, and reliability within both your team and software development teams
• Own the reliability, performance, and availability of systems infrastructure across US and EU environments
• Lead response to infrastructure incidents and drive improvements to system stability and operational processes
• Design, build, and operate cloud infrastructure and core systems supporting application workloads using AWS, Kubernetes, Terraform, and related technologies
• Drive infrastructure standardization and alignment across global teams, ensuring consistency and compliance (e.g., GDPR, data residency)
• Lead disaster recovery and business continuity planning, ensuring resilience of critical systems
• Operate and continuously improve vulnerability management and patching processes for cloud infrastructure, leveraging tools such as Wiz to prioritize and drive timely remediation of security risks

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed
• Number of Employees: 501-1,000 employees