Systems Engineer II

We want people who are passionate about optimizing and troubleshooting data center hardware at mega-scale so our customers don't have to worry!

Reporting to the Manager of Infra Machines Design, you will act as the team lead for sustaining engineering efforts for the hardware infrastructure of the DigitalOcean server fleet. The ideal candidate will be eager to face new challenges as DigitalOcean continues to scale its data center footprint and infrastructure cloud capacity and explore new technologies and capabilities to bring to our customers, providing top-tier support for our hardware and firmware in the DO fleet.

What You'll Be Doing:

Act as technical lead for the Sustaining Engineering team in the Infra::Machines::Design Organization

Support server hardware, cabling, and networking hardware throughout its operational lifecycle

Monitor the #machines channel and MACHINES JIRA project for issues and drive them to resolution

Participate in 24/7 on-call rotation with other members of the team

Act as Tier 2 escalation for Datacenter Operations (DCOPS) and Cloud Operations (CloudOps) regarding hardware and firmware components

Develop and maintain standards and practices for DigitalOcean hardware operations

Work closely with the Qualification team, Firmware team, Fleet Lifecycle Engineering team (FLE), Foresight team, and Infrastructure Services team to resolve issues in tooling, firmware packages, hardware components, and other operational concerns

Liase with DCOPS teams to develop, deliver, and support hardware-related runbooks

Liase with vendor support teams regarding hardware and firmware issues and drive issues to resolution

Identify gaps in tooling and operational processes and engage appropriate peer teams to close gaps

Help 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 alerting

Assist in troubleshooting cause 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

What We'll Expect From You:

• Technical Degree (BS Computer Science/Engineering) or equivalent practical experience
• Hands-on experience operating a cloud infrastructure at mid-tier scale or better
• An in-depth understanding of server hardware, firmware, and infrastructure
• Strong knowledge in troubleshooting techniques, Python and BASH
• Extra points for JTAG debugging / Firmware troubleshooting / Wire sniffing experience
• Clear communication and collaboration across key stakeholders
• An insatiable passion for constant improvement

Compensation Range:

$107,000 - $134,000

This is a remote role

JR: 2026-7601 #LI-Remote