Systems Engineer I

DigitalOcean • Austin, TX

10d • $83,000 - $104,000 • Remote

About The Position

Dive in and do the best work of your career at DigitalOcean. Journey alongside a strong community of top talent who are relentless in their drive to build the simplest scalable cloud. If you have a growth mindset, naturally like to think big and bold, and are energized by the fast-paced environment of a true industry disruptor, you’ll find your place here. We value winning together—while learning, having fun, and making a profound difference for the dreamers and builders in the world.
We want people who are passionate about optimizing and troubleshooting data center hardware at mega-scale so our customers don’t have to worry!
We are looking for an entry-level hardware technologist with experience testing and deploying firmware to server hardware at scale. Reporting to the Manager of Infra::Machines::Design, the Firmware Qualification Engineer will qualify and deploy firmware packages across DigitalOcean products and components and join a team of engineers who have already paved the way for the many tens of thousands of servers in our infrastructure. The ideal candidate will be eager to face new challenges as DigitalOcean continues to scale its data center footprint and explore new technologies to bring to our customers.

Requirements

• Technical Degree (BS Computer Science/Engineering) or equivalent practical experience
• Strong understanding of x86 server hardware architecture and subsystems.
• Demonstrated professional proficiency in configuration management best-practices (we use Ansible and Chef)
• Experience automating server firmware components at large-scale using industry-standard tooling (Redfish, IPMI, etc) including a deep understanding of benchmarking, automating test frameworks, and process automation in general
• Practical knowledge of PXE boot, UEFI, Linux/OS boot, AMI/OEM BIOS distributions, OpenBMC/AMI/OEM BMC implementations, RAID and other storage resiliency technologies, and the full Network stack- from NIC firmware to TCP/IPAdept at Linux (or Unix) operating systems. You’ll be spending a lot of time working in one!
• Comfortable with version control systems (we use Git) and proficient in at least one programming language (such as Python or Go) Ability to participate in 24/7 on-call rotation with other members of the team
• Excellent communication skills, both within the team and with the broader company
• Have an insatiable passion for hardware, both new and old

Nice To Haves

• Ideally, you’ve worked with non-x86 hardware too!

Responsibilities

• Work with vendors and internal peer teams on qualifying, onboarding, and delivering new firmware to the DigitalOcean ecosystem
• Act as Tier 3 escalation on-call for triage, investigation, and resolution of system firmware issues in the DigitalOcean fleet (both customer-facing and internal)
• Participate in 24/7 on-call rotation with other members of the teamImprove existing firmware and hardware configuration automation/validation, for both hardware platforms and components (such as NIC, Storage and BMC)
• Engage with hardware vendors about new automation features and existing bugsHelp with development of tooling and associated runbooks to address gaps in operational capabilities around hardware and firmware operations
• Coordinate with Ops teams on monitoring thresholds, failure modes and alertingAssist in troubleshooting causes of failures and work to prevent them in the future
• Raise the quality bar in the delivery of our cloud infrastructure by identifying industry best practices and working to adopt them

Benefits

• We provide employees with reimbursement for relevant conferences, training, and education.
• All employees have access to LinkedIn Learning's 10,000+ courses to support their continued growth and development.
• Regardless of your location, we will provide you with a competitive array of benefits to support you from our Employee Assistance Program to Local Employee Meetups to flexible time off policy, to name a few.
• We also provide equity compensation to eligible employees, including equity grants upon hire and the option to participate in our Employee Stock Purchase Program.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Entry Level