Site Reliability Engineer (DC Operations)
Software, automation, and the on-call rotation behind the data hall.
Pay range
$100,000 – $180,000
Entry path
CS/IT degree or equivalent, plus scripting and on-call experience
About the role
Hyperscalers and large colos run automation layers on top of their physical infrastructure: DCIM systems, custom monitoring, fleet-management software, robotic inventory. The Site Reliability Engineer role (or DCO Engineer, depending on the operator) writes and operates that software. It's the closest thing in the industry to a software engineering role and the natural landing spot for ex-SWEs who want to work in physical infrastructure without losing their coding skills.
What you do
- •Build and maintain DCIM, monitoring, and automation tooling
- •On-call rotation covering critical alerts across multiple sites
- •Post-incident reviews and reliability engineering
- •Capacity planning and power/cooling analytics
- •Collaborate with facility ops on runbook and tooling design
Certifications and credentials
- •No specific cert required; technical skills weigh heaviest
- •Linux administration, Python or Go scripting
- •Familiarity with Prometheus / Grafana / DCIM platforms
- •AWS / Azure cloud certs help for operators on hyperscaler side
Best fit for
- •Ex-software engineers wanting physical infrastructure exposure
- •Sysadmins or SREs from other industries pivoting in
- •Engineering grads who want hands-on operations rather than design
A typical day
Stand-up at 9am with the ops team. Triage overnight alerts that the on-call engineer escalated. Code review a teammate's PR for the cooling-anomaly detector. Pair with a facilities tech on a strange power-draw pattern. Write a post-incident review for last week's CRAC failure. Submit a PR before EOD.
See open roles
Browse the live data center map to find facilities near you, then use the job-board matrix on any facility page to search for Site Reliability Engineer (DC Operations) openings on Indeed, LinkedIn, Glassdoor, and ZipRecruiter.