Sr. IT Systems Engineer, DevOps

SpaceX is looking for a Senior IT Systems Engineer with a focus on DevOps to join our growing team. You will own the architecture, design, implementation, and evolution of our CI/CD platforms, infrastructure automation, and reliability engineering practices at scale, including on-premise VM and Kubernetes infrastructure. This employee will be a senior member of the Information Technology IT Applications team. The ideal candidate will be a technical leader who is flexible and flourishes in a fast-paced, high-stakes environment. He or she should be a self-starter, self-motivator, and possess the ingenuity and ownership to excel at this position while mentoring others.

• →Architect, design, implement, and manage enterprise-scale CI/CD pipelines and platforms running on both on-premise VM infrastructure and Kubernetes clusters.
• →Lead automation of deployment, configuration, monitoring, and operations to drive reliability, scalability, and efficiency across hundreds of on-premise servers, VMs, and containerized environments.
• →Define and enforce DevOps, SRE, and release engineering best practices, standards, and security controls across on-premise VM and Kubernetes infrastructure.
• →Partner closely with software engineering, development, and operations teams to streamline code integration, testing, delivery, and feedback loops.
• →Own system performance, capacity planning, troubleshooting, and optimization of on-premise VM clusters and Kubernetes environments; drive root-cause analysis and long-term improvements.
• →Design, maintain, and enhance observability (logging, metrics, tracing, alerting) for on-premise infrastructure using tools such as Grafana, Prometheus, Influx, Splunk, or equivalents.
• →Lead high-availability, disaster recovery, and business continuity strategies for on-premise VM and Kubernetes platforms, including planning, executing, and improving routine annual disaster recovery exercises.
• →Administer, scale, and evolve CI/CD platforms, source control systems (e.g., GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Jenkins, Bamboo, or modern equivalents), and the supporting on-premise Kubernetes clusters or VM-based infrastructure they run on.
• →Propose, champion, and implement infrastructure-as-code, GitOps, and automated release processes for both VM and Kubernetes environments.
• →Mentor junior engineers, review designs and code, and contribute to team technical direction for on-premise infrastructure.
• →Evaluate and introduce new tools, platforms, and practices to improve developer productivity and operational excellence on on-premise systems.

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, engineering, or information systems with 5+ years’ experience in DevOps, SRE, platform engineering, or related role, OR 10+ years’ equivalent experience.
• Experience administering and scaling Linux environments (physical, virtual/on-premise VMs, and containerized/Kubernetes).
• Experience administering and scaling code hosting/collaboration platforms (GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket) and CI/CD systems (Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Bamboo, or similar) on on-premise infrastructure.
• Experience designing and operating production CI/CD pipelines and automation at scale on VM and Kubernetes platforms.

• Strong experience with observability and monitoring stacks (Prometheus, Grafana, Splunk, ELK, etc.) for on-premise VM and Kubernetes environments.
• Advanced scripting and programming (Python, Bash, Go, Groovy, or similar).
• Proficiency with containers and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes) including on-premise Kubernetes distributions (e.g., kubeadm, Rancher, OpenShift, Tanzu).
• Experience with configuration management and IaC (Ansible, Terraform, Chef, Puppet, or similar) for on-premise VMs and Kubernetes clusters.
• Deep knowledge of Git, branching strategies, semantic versioning, and release management.
• Experience with on-premise virtualization platforms (VMware vSphere, Hyper-V, KVM, or similar) and hybrid VM/Kubernetes environments.
• Experience with security hardening, networking, and compliance for on-premise infrastructure.
• Demonstrated ability to lead technical initiatives, influence across teams, and thrive in a fast-paced, high-ownership environment.
• Excellent communication, documentation, and mentoring skills.

• Willing to work extended hours or weekends as necessary.
• Ability to pass Air Force background checks for Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg.

• 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.