Director, Site Reliability Engineering

About DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo is a privacy-focused online search company and remote-first organization of over 300 employees dedicated to enhancing online trust. Founded in 2008 and profitable since 2014, the company generates over $100 million USD annually. Millions of users utilize DuckDuckGo's browser across various platforms such as Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android, along with its search engine and subscription services. The company also provides private AI tools, including Duck.ai, which integrates multiple AI chat services for user privacy.

Our culture encourages full ownership of projects, from initial planning through execution and final review, in an environment valuing trust, inclusion, and empowered management.

Role and Responsibilities

As Director of Site Reliability Engineering, you will play a pivotal role on the Site Reliability Team, building and sustaining high-quality infrastructure to support millions of privacy-conscious users. Responsibilities include the use of advanced programming languages like Perl, Go, TypeScript, and Python, working on projects such as:

• Ensuring the Duck.ai product adheres to our reliability standards while minimizing user disruption during failures.
• Scaling the internal index infrastructure to handle billions of documents efficiently.
• Developing anti-fraud verification mechanisms that respect user privacy.

You will resolve complex operational challenges involving software, systems, automation, and process improvement, managing and deploying software to strengthen reliability in large-scale environments.

Candidate Profile

• Over 10 years of experience in reliability, platform, infrastructure, or software engineering, with a minimum of 4 years in leadership of SRE teams.
• Experience participating in 24/7 on-call rotations in large-scale deployments.
• Proven ability to lead complex, impactful projects from initial proposal to post-project review.
• Expertise in AI-driven development and designing agentic workflows.
• Strong problem-solving skills to handle ambiguous problems and execute innovative, metrics-focused solutions.
• Experience developing tools, services, alerts, and procedures to detect and mitigate reliability risks.
• Advanced skills in diagnosing instability causes in high-traffic, distributed systems.
• Solid background in Linux system administration and web technology troubleshooting.
• Expertise in automation for infrastructure provisioning and configuration management, focusing on scalability, efficiency, and reliability.
• Visionary insight to steer future technical direction for improved reliability and performance.
• Advanced programming ability to partner closely with software engineering teams for production issue triage, remediation, and code enhancement.
• Practical knowledge of cloud-native services and architectures, with experience deploying applications using Docker and Docker Compose.

Compensation and Benefits

The position offers an annual salary of $243,800 USD plus stock options. Compensation is transparent and equitable across the same professional level and global region. Company-sponsored health benefits apply only to employees located in the United States. The company supports employee wellbeing with paid parental leave, office setup assistance, and co-working allocations.

Additional Information and Terms

• Work is fully remote with an expected average of 40 hours per week and flexible scheduling without core hours.
• Participation in video conferencing meetings with camera use is required.
• Employees are expected to travel approximately twice per year for company-wide events and team retreats, each lasting around 4-5 days, with some accommodation for exceptional cases.
• Candidates must pass a background check before employment.
• Applicants must provide truthful and complete information as falsification may lead to offer revocation or termination.

Hiring and Diversity

DuckDuckGo fosters an inclusive hiring process, prohibiting discrimination on all legally protected bases. The company provides reasonable accommodations during the recruitment process for disabilities or medical conditions.

Use of AI in Hiring

The recruitment process incorporates AI tools to assist in reviewing applications and evaluating tests, adhering to privacy and transparency principles. Final hiring decisions are made by the human recruiting team. Applicants consenting to AI-assisted recruitment may request alternative processes if desired.