Staff Site Reliability Engineer

This is a hybrid role based in our Chicago or Palo Alto offices and will require you to be in office Tuesdays and Thursdays.

What’s so interesting about this role?

The Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) team at Grindr is responsible for ensuring our systems are stable, performant, and scalable as we continue to grow globally. This role reports directly to the Director of Technical Operations and plays a critical part in keeping our infrastructure running reliably while supporting both backend and operations teams. By driving improvements in automation, incident response, and performance optimization, this position ensures Grindr can deliver a safe, reliable, and seamless experience to millions of users worldwide. The team’s work directly impacts uptime, efficiency, and overall system resilience, supporting Grindr’s broader roadmap of building a secure and high-performing platform for the LGBTQ+ community.

What’s the job?

• Monitoring and Alerting: Set up and maintain monitoring systems to track the health and performance of applications and infrastructure. Create and manage alerting mechanisms to detect and respond to issues quickly.

• Incident Response: Handle incidents and outages, working to resolve them swiftly and minimize downtime. Performing root cause analysis to prevent future occurrences and improve system resilience.

• Automation: Develop tools and scripts to automate repetitive tasks, such as deployments, monitoring, and scaling, to increase efficiency and reduce human error.

• Performance Optimization: Analyze system performance and identify bottlenecks or areas for improvement. Work with development teams to optimize code and infrastructure for better performance and resource utilization.

• Capacity Planning: Plan for future growth by analyzing current usage trends and forecasting resource needs. Additionally, you’ll ensure that systems can handle increased load without compromising performance or reliability.

• Service Level Objectives (SLOs) and Service Level Agreements (SLAs): Define and measure SLOs and SLAs to set expectations for system reliability and performance. Track these metrics and work to maintain or exceed the defined standards.

• Incident Management and Postmortems: After incidents, conduct post mortems to document what went wrong, what was done to fix it, and how to prevent similar incidents in the future. This process helps in continuous improvement and learning from failures.

• Collaboration with Development Teams: Work closely with software developers to integrate reliability and performance into the development process. Provide guidance on best practices and assist with designing resilient systems.

• Security and Compliance: Ensure that systems are secure and compliant with relevant regulations and standards. They implement security measures, monitor for vulnerabilities, and respond to security incidents.

• Continuous Improvement: Continuously look for ways to improve system reliability, performance, and efficiency. Stay updated with industry trends and advancements to implement the best practices and technologies.

• Participate in an on-call rotation

What we'll love about you

• 5+ years of experience in site reliability including incident response, incident management, automation and performance optimization

• 5+ years of experience in cloud platforms (AWS preferred)

• 4+ years of experience working with DevOps technologies such as Docker, Kubernetes, Helm, and Terraform

• 4+ years developing and maintaining CI/CD pipelines

• 4+ years experience using a scripting language like python or bash

• Experience coding in Kotlin or another JVM language is a plus

We’ll really swoon if you have

• Technical Expertise:

  • Proficient in at least one programming language (e.g., Python, Go, Java).

  • Strong knowledge of Linux/Unix systems.

  • Experience with cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, GCP, Azure).

  • Familiarity with containerization and orchestration tools (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes).

  • Understanding of networking concepts and protocols.

• Reliability Engineering:

  • Experience with monitoring, logging, and alerting tools (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, ELK stack).

  • Ability to implement and manage CI/CD pipelines.

  • Knowledge of infrastructure as code (e.g., Terraform, Ansible).

  • Proficiency in automated testing and deployment practices.

  • Understanding of SRE principles and practices, including SLAs, SLOs, and SLIs.

• Security:

  • Knowledge of security best practices and compliance standards.

  • Experience with vulnerability assessment and mitigation.

• Operational Excellence:

  • Proven track record of maintaining high availability and performance in production environments.

  • Experience with incident management and post-mortem analysis.

  • Ability to optimize system performance and resource utilization

What you'll love about us

• Mission and Impact: Grindr is building the global gayborhood in your pocket. Your role will impact the lives of millions of LGBTQ+ people around the world. Through our success, we are making a world where the lives of our community are free, equal, and just.

• Family Insurance: Insurance premium coverage for health, dental, and vision for you and partial coverage for your dependents.

• Retirement Savings: Generous 401K plan with 6% match and immediate vest in the U.S.

• Compensation: Industry-competitive compensation and eligibility for company bonus and equity programs.

• Queer-Inclusive Benefits: Industry-leading gender-affirming offerings with up to 90% cost coverage, access to Included Health, monthly stipends for HRT, and more.

• Additional Benefits: Flexible vacation policy, monthly stipends for cell phone, internet, wellness, food, and commuting, breakfast/lunch provided onsite, and yearly travel & leisure stipend.

About Grindr

Grindr is building the global gayborhood in your pocket. With more than 13.5 million monthly active users, Grindr has become a fundamental part of the LGBTQ+ community and is charting a path to make the world more free, equal, and just. Since 2015, Grindr for Equality has advanced safety, health, and human rights for millions of Grindr users and the global LGBTQ+ community in partnership with more than 100 community organizations in every region of the world.

Our next evolution is underway as a public company that continues to grow and build meaningful experiences for our users. From social issues to product innovations, we’re setting audacious goals for our community and the business, and leveraging the latest tech stacks and a culture of engineering excellence to make it happen. At the heart of our work in this new chapter is a shared set of operating principles centered around cultivating curiosity, thinking big, setting and expediting our ambitious goals, and growing through iteration; all while keeping our users #1.

Grindr is headquartered in West Hollywood, California, with offices in the Bay Area, Chicago, and New York. With a track record of strong financial performance and plans for continued headcount growth, we’re building a team of talented, passionate, and open-minded people who want to disrupt the dating app space, innovate products, and advance LGBTQ+ culture. Come be a part of this exciting journey with us.

Grindr is an equal-opportunity employer

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