Telco SRE Engineer

AST SpaceMobile is building the first and only global cellular broadband network in space to operate directly with standard, unmodified mobile devices based on our extensive IP and patent portfolio and designed for both commercial and government applications. Our engineers and space scientists are on a mission to eliminate the connectivity gaps faced by today’s five billion mobile subscribers and finally bring broadband to the billions who remain unconnected.

Position Overview

We are looking for SRE/DevOps to join our AST’s Telco Software Development team to design and develop innovative telco software solutions and components. This is a hands-on engineering role for engineers who are motivated by building genuinely novel software in a fast-moving, greenfield environment. You will be embedded in a small, high-ownership team where your code ships into real network infrastructure, and where the technical decisions you contribute to will directly shape AST’s long-term differentiation. Candidates may come from a software engineering background (strong systems and backend, ideally with telecom exposure) or from other related engineering domains with solid software development skills.

Key Responsibilities:

• Design and implement GitOps-driven infrastructure on Kubernetes using ArgoCD for continuous deployment and declarative infrastructure management
• Develop Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) solutions for telco infrastructure using Terraform and CloudFormation
• Build and optimize GitOps pipelines for automated, auditable infrastructure and application deployments
• Manage containerized workloads on Kubernetes clusters supporting LTE/5G core and RAN services
• Implement and optimize monitoring, logging, and alerting systems using Prometheus, Grafana, ELK, and similar tools
• Translate architectural specifications, interface control documents (ICDs), and functional & non-functional requirements into clean, well-tested, production-ready code
• Automate operational tasks to reduce manual toil and improve system reliability through declarative configuration management
• Document infrastructure architecture, runbooks, and standard operating procedures
• Collaborate with network engineers and software teams to ensure seamless infrastructure integration

Qualifications

Education:

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Telecommunications Engineering, or a related field — or equivalent professional experience.

Experience:

A minimum of 3+ years of DevOps/SRE production experience – exposure to telecom or network related development projects is a plus.

• Strong proficiency with Kubernetes, GitOps (ArgoCD), and containerization on AWS, Azure, or GCP
• Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform, CloudFormation) and declarative CI pipelines (Azure pipelines, GitLab CI, or similar)
• Networking fundamentals
• Scripting/automation (Python, Bash, Go) and operations: monitoring (Prometheus, Grafana, ELK), security, compliance
• Demonstrated problem-solving ability and ownership mindset
• English proficiency at B2 level or above; able to collaborate effectively with peers and architects in a globally distributed team

Preferred Qualifications:

• Advanced GitOps patterns: multi-tenancy, multi-cluster, progressive delivery (Argo Rollouts); familiarity with Flux or alternative frameworks
• Service mesh expertise (Istio, Linkerd) in containerized environments
• Deep telco domain knowledge: RAN (gNodeB, CU/DU), 5G Core (5GC, network slicing), LTE Core (EPC, MME), BSS/OSS platforms
• 5G SA/NSA architectures, NFV, and network function testing
• SDN, OpenFlow, and edge computing (MEC) fundamentals
• Previous experience at telecommunications carrier or major telco vendor
• Relevant certifications (Kubernetes, AWS, GCP, or telco-specific)

Soft Skills:

• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills - able to break down complex, under-defined problems and deliver working software iteratively
• High ownership mentality - take personal responsibility for the quality and correctness of your own work, not just task completion
• Collaborative and communicative - actively participates in design discussions, code reviews, and cross-functional conversations
• Curious and self-directed - proactively learns domain context (telecom protocols, network architecture) beyond what is immediately required for the next ticket
• Comfortable with ambiguity and greenfield work - able to operate effectively when specifications are evolving and there is no legacy codebase to reference
• Attention to detail in code quality, test coverage, and documentation

Technology Stack:

Deployment & Container Orchestration:

- Kubernetes (EKS, on-premises)

- Helm, Kustomize (package management and templating)

- ArgoCD, Flux (GitOps continuous deployment)

Infrastructure & IaC:

- Terraform, CloudFormation (infrastructure-as-code)

- AWS: EC2, ECS, EKS, VPC, networking

- Linux

CI/CD & Version Control:

- Azure pipelines, GitLab CI (declarative pipelines)

- Git (version control, branching strategies)

Observability & Monitoring:

- Prometheus, Grafana (metrics collection and visualization)

- ELK Stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana) for logging

- Datadog, New Relic (APM and distributed tracing)

Telco Infrastructure:

- 3GPP standards and specifications

- RAN: gNodeB, eNodeB, CU/DU split architectures

- 5G Core: 5GC, network slicing, service-based architecture (SBA)

- LTE Core: EPC, MME, SGW, PGW

- OSS/BSS platforms and network management systems

Programming & Scripting:

- Python, Bash, Go

- REST API design and integration

Physical Requirements

• Ability to work in a standard office or remote home-office environment and use a computer for extended periods
• Ability to participate in occasional after-hours incident response actions

This job description may not be inclusive to the duties and responsibilities listed. Additional tasks may be assigned to the employee from time to time or the scope of the job may change as needed by business demands.

AST SpaceMobile is an Equal Opportunity, at will Employer; employment 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.