Principal Site Reliability Engineer

Hi, we’re DuckDuckGo, the Internet privacy company for everyone who wants to take back their privacy now. For over a decade, we’ve been building our all-in-one product, developing new privacy technology, and working with policymakers to make online privacy simple and accessible for all.

Our app is now downloaded more than 78M times a year, and our private search engine packaged with it has become the #2 search engine on mobile in the United States and 18 other countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Germany, and the Netherlands. Oh, and we’ve been profitable since 2014, with revenue exceeding $100 million a year! Now, we’re rolling out a suite of new privacy solutions, including Email Protection, App Tracking Protection and our first-ever Desktop Apps for Mac and Windows.

We’re looking for a Principal Site Reliability Engineer to help shape our all-in-one privacy solution and join our mission to show the world that protecting your privacy online can be simple.

The Opportunity:

In this highly technical role, you’ll act as a hands-on leader and engineering partner for one of our key strategic objectives (search or similar), pragmatically navigating cross-functional interests to help us execute our vision with urgency.

You’ll focus on hands-on technical work, diving deep into our stack to understand and optimize complex systems and user interactions, participate in SRE on-call rotation, triaging production issues and defining appropriate remediation, and help shape the future technical direction of our stack, all while keeping privacy at the forefront as you improve reliability and performance.

You’ll also advise engineers on the SRE team and beyond, nurturing their growth and collaborating closely with other developers throughout the end-to-end development cycle across technical design, implementation, QA, review, and release.

What You Will Bring to DuckDuckGo:

• 10+ years of experience in SRE focused roles responsible for supporting, scaling and ensuring reliability of large-scale end-to-end infrastructures.
• 4+ years of experience in roles of comparable seniority (Principal, Director, etc.) with a proven track record of proposing and executing strategic infrastructure work.
• Ability to root cause sources of instability of high-traffic, distributed systems.
• Skilled at managing complex solutions and delivering in pragmatic ways.
• Deep experience working with Linux and web technologies.
• Experience participating in a 24×7 on-call rotation for large-scale deployment.
• Advanced programming experience, preferably in a high-level language like Perl or Python.
• Ability to provide technical advisory for other engineers to help them grow and deliver high quality work faster.

How We Will Support You:

Our core values — build trust, question assumptions, and validate direction — underpin how we work day-to-day and the support we give our team members. We strive to empower our team members to be self-directed and self-motivated in their work.

• Remote First, Always: We’ve always been a fully distributed company with team members all over the world. We trust you to get your work done wherever, and whenever.
• Commitment to Personal Growth: Every team member has an annual budget of $1,250 USD to invest in their professional development. For team members in designated leadership roles, we offer reimbursement for leadership coaching services. The reimbursement amount varies by professional level. Every team member also has a dedicated Career Advisor, who serves as a guide to help you develop your strengths, identify your motivations, and understand your opportunities for growth.
• Leadership: We have many different types of leaders and possible combinations of leadership roles, so you can grow your career in a way that aligns best with your personal goals. You can seek additional leadership roles by being directly responsible for projects, taking ownership of areas of the company, developing and maintaining internal processes, or pursuing advisory roles.
• Work/Life Balance: Team members have the freedom and flexibility to organize their own work schedules. We want you to thrive both in and out of the office. We trust you to use good judgment and take the time off that you need to bring your best self to work.

Compensation:

Annual compensation: $220,000 – $242,000 USD and stock options. Compensation is the same within a professional level, regardless of geographic location or functional area, and the compensation for each professional level is transparent across the organization.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion:

DuckDuckGo provides equal work opportunities to all team members and applicants, and it prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type on the basis of race, color, ethnicity, caste, religion, age, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by our policies or federal, state, or local laws.

Please note that:

• Sometimes we meet up! Expect to travel at least two times a year: once for our all-hands meetup and again for a team retreat (each around 4-5 days). While extenuating circumstances may impact attendance, everyone is strongly encouraged to attend.
• While we offer a flexible work arrangement with no core hours, expect an average full-time commitment of 40 hours per week.
• A successful candidate will be subject to a background check and must receive satisfactory results of the same, as a condition of joining the team.
• By applying for this role, you confirm that all information submitted is accurate and complete. You further acknowledge that providing false or fraudulent information during the application process is cause for denial of an offer, revocation of any existing offer, or other adverse action, up to and including termination after the start of your commencement of work.

Apply now >