The posting
Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) – Platform Team (AWS + Hybrid)
Purpose of Position
We’re looking for a Site Reliability Engineer to join our Platform team and own the reliability of the systems that keep our company trading — from our AWS-based digital platform to the connectivity and point-of-sale systems in every store. You’ll treat reliability as a product: setting SLOs with engineering and product leaders, managing error budgets, and making the call between shipping faster and holding the line.
This is a hands-on role that spans cloud and ground. One hour you’re tuning a Prometheus federation or an Open Telemetry pipeline; the next you’re troubleshooting a store’s connectivity at peak service. You’ll lead P0/P1 incident response, run blameless post-mortems, and build the observability and on-call practices that let a distributed, multi-site business run calmly through its busiest hours.
We care about reliability and cost — uptime at any price isn’t the goal. We want someone who genuinely understands how a technology failure translates into guest experience, crew workflows, and revenue, and who builds systems and schedules around how restaurants operate.
Our current stack includes:
Technology we use
Current Stack
- Application Stack: TypeScript, NestJS, TypeORM/Sequelize, React / React Native, MySQL / Aurora.
- Cloud (AWS): ECS/Fargate, Lambda, RDS Aurora, CloudFront, API Gateway, SQS/SNS, IAM, VPC networking, Flow Logs.
- IaC & Automation: Terraform and AWS CDK at scale, CloudFormation, GitHub Actions, Bitrise.
- Observability: Prometheus, Grafana, Open Telemetry / OTel Collector, Datadog, AWS CloudWatch.
- Networking: SD-WAN, MPLS, BGP, VLANs and firewall policy; AWS Direct Connect, Site-to-Site VPN, Transit Gateway.
Reliability & Operations
- SLOs & error budgets: service-level indicators, objectives and agreements shaped with product and engineering leaders.
- Incident response: P0/P1 command, structured blameless post-mortems, and error-budget-driven release decisions.
- On-call by design: rosters built around operational peaks — breakfast, lunch, dinner, and weekend surge.
- Multi-site footprint: store connectivity and last-mile reliability across a distributed retail / QSR estate.
Reporting to: Head of Engineering (Platform & Cloud Operations)
Responsibilities
Responsibilities include, but are not limited to:
Responsibilities
Cloud Infrastructure & Reliability
- Operate AWS at scale — ECS, Lambda, RDS Aurora, CloudFront, IAM, and VPC networking, managed as infrastructure-as-code with Terraform or AWS CDK.
- Engineer for cost-aware reliability — balance availability against cost; right-size and optimise rather than chase uptime at any price.
- Harden release readiness — CI/CD, deployment safety, and rollback so changes reach production reliably.
Hybrid & On-Premises Networking
- Run physical and hybrid networks — SD-WAN, MPLS, BGP routing, VLANs, and firewall policy across a multi-site estate.
- Own hybrid connectivity — AWS Direct Connect, Site-to-Site VPN, and Transit Gateway between cloud and stores.
- Solve last-mile problems — diagnose and resolve store connectivity issues remotely, calmly and quickly, at peak service.
Observability at Scale
- Operate and scale Prometheus — federation, remote write, cardinality management, and alerting rules.
- Build Grafana for ops — dashboards, alerting, and provisioning at scale (Mimir or Thanos a plus).
- Run Open Telemetry pipelines — OTel Collector processors, exporters, and multi-destination routing.
- Integrate OSS and commercial — Datadog alongside the open-source stack for comprehensive insight.
SLA / SLO Ownership & Incident Response
- Define SLIs, SLOs and SLAs — shaped with product and engineering leaders, not filled into a spreadsheet.
- Manage error budgets — translate burn rate into clear release decisions and communicate trade-offs.
- Lead P0/P1 incidents — command response and run structured, blameless post-mortems.
- Report reliability — present metrics clearly to non-technical stakeholders across ops, finance, and exec.
Restaurant Operations & On-Call
- Connect tech to the guest — understand how failures hit guest experience, crew workflows, and revenue — not just ticket counts.
- Know the QSR stack — POS systems, kitchen display systems (KDS), ordering integrations, and loyalty platforms.
- Design around peaks — build systems and on-call schedules for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and weekend surge.
Collaboration & Enablement
- Partner across teams — support scalable, reliable service design with product and engineering.
- Mentor and document — raise SRE and DevOps practice; document infrastructure, decisions, and runbooks.
- Improve the platform — contribute to internal developer platform and portal tooling that lifts team productivity.
Essential Requirements & Behaviour
Cloud & Infrastructure
- 5+ years with AWS — hands-on with ECS, Lambda, RDS Aurora, CloudFront, IAM, and VPC networking
- Proficiency with Terraform or AWS CDK for infrastructure-as-code at scale
- Familiarity with AWS cost optimisation alongside reliability — not just uptime at any cost
- Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Engineering, or a related discipline, or equivalent experience
On-Premises & Hybrid Networking
- Proven experience managing physical network infrastructure — SD-WAN, MPLS, BGP routing, VLANs, and firewall policy
- Comfortable with last-mile connectivity challenges in distributed, multi-site environments (retail / hospitality preferred)
- Experience with hybrid connectivity patterns — AWS Direct Connect, Site-to-Site VPN, and Transit Gateway
- Able to troubleshoot a store connectivity issue remotely at peak service — calmly and quickly
Observability at Scale
- Deep experience operating and scaling Prometheus — federation, remote write, cardinality management, alerting rules
- Grafana expertise: dashboard design for ops audiences, alerting, provisioning, and managing at scale (Grafana Mimir or Thanos a plus)
- Hands-on with Open Telemetry and OTel Collector pipelines — processors, exporters, and multi-destination routing
- Experience integrating commercial observability (Datadog) alongside OSS stacks
SLA / SLO Ownership & Incident Response
- Experience defining service-level indicators, objectives, and agreements — shaping them with product and engineering leaders, not just filling in a spreadsheet
- Able to manage and communicate error budgets and translate burn rate into release decisions
- Track record leading P0/P1 incident response and running structured post-mortems
- Comfortable presenting reliability metrics to non-technical stakeholders (ops, finance, exec)
Restaurant Operations Understanding
- Genuine understanding of how technology failures translate to guest experience, crew workflows, and revenue — not just ticket counts
- Familiarity with QSR or fast-casual tech: POS systems, kitchen display systems (KDS), ordering integrations, and loyalty platforms
- Awareness of operational peaks (breakfast, lunch, dinner, weekend surge) and how to build systems and on-call schedules around them
Nice to Have
- Experience across AWS and Azure networking, Transit Gateway, Open Telemetry, and infrastructure reliability
- Background with Datadog Observability Pipelines Worker (OPW) or similar log routing
- Okta or SSO / IAM integration experience for workforce identity
- Contributions to internal developer platforms or portal tooling
- AWS Solutions Architect, or equivalent certification
What Makes You Ideal
You treat reliability as a product, not a chore — you shape SLOs, defend error budgets, and stay calm when a store goes dark at the lunch peak. You’re as comfortable in a BGP session or a firewall policy as you are in an OTel pipeline or a Terraform module, and you know when spending more on uptime stops being worth it.
Most of all, you understand that behind every metric is a guest waiting for an order and a crew member trying to serve them. You build systems, dashboards, and on-call schedules around how restaurants run — and you leave behind runbooks and practices the whole team can rely on.
