Director of Site Reliability Engineering (SRE)

About Backblaze

Backblaze is the object storage leader in the open cloud movement, fueling customer success with cloud storage built purposefully to unlock budgets, unburden administrators, and unleash innovators. Together with our partners, we’re helping customers break free from the restrictive, overpriced legacy solutions that hold them back, and blaze forward with the full power of the open cloud in their hands.

Founded in 2007, we scaled the business with less than $3 million in outside funding until 2021, when we did a traditional IPO on the Nasdaq stock exchange. Today, Backblaze generates over $100m in revenue and is the leading specialized storage cloud - managing over three billion gigabytes of data storage for 500K+ customers in 175+ countries, including businesses, developers, IT professionals, and individuals.

But while there is a lot to celebrate in our past, there is almost as much opportunity ahead of us. We’re seeking a Director of SRE to join our team! 

About the Role:

We are seeking an ambitious and accomplished Director of SRE to join our Cloud Operations leadership team. In this role, you will lead the front-line teams responsible for delivering mission-critical SRE production services. You will drive initiatives to identify, prioritize, and execute opportunities that enhance our core operational competencies and create a broad organizational impact. As a champion of engineering excellence, you’ll focus on performance measurement, incident/change management, problem resolution, and process discipline. This is an exciting opportunity to significantly impact our company's growth trajectory and shape the future of our global production footprint.

This position may be remote, but our team loves face-to-face collaboration. Most of our leaders are spread across the country, so we would like them to visit during our organized workshops that take place across the US. This role will involve managing a globalized workforce across multiple time zones.

What You'll Do:

As the Director of SRE, you will be directly accountable for Backblaze’s production infrastructure and performance against key SLOs. You will lead and mentor our global Sr. SRE, and SRE Level 1 services teams, ensuring operational excellence. Additionally, you will share responsibility for managing demand forecasts and making strategic decisions regarding infrastructure expansion. You will also oversee the budget for all operational tooling and observability. 

At Backblaze, we foster a positive and supportive culture, valuing the best talent and investing in the growth and development of our team members.

You will be a key member of the Cloud Operations leadership team, reporting to the SVP, Cloud Operations.  You will lead the globally distributed data center teams which comprise your group, and guide the organization through effective management and leadership:

• Lead a globally distributed team of 15+ highly technical teammates:
  • Provide 24/7 services for SRE
  • Own the single source of truth for the state of production
  • Centrally manage all aspects of incident and change management
  • Maintain a culture of continuous improvement, leveraging operational data to prioritize work across teams.
  • Be customer focused, and have a strong bias to action therein.
  • Collaborate closely with Customer Support to provide seamless world-class support
  • Collaborate with Supply Chain to manage proper levels of inventory
• Lead & coordinate strategic initiatives to evolve and improve production support, incident/change/asset management.
• Liaise with Vendor Management and Legal to manage critical contract renewal cycles
• Establish department-level objectives, policies, and procedures, creating OKRs or other measurements as applicable
• Recruit & coach the team to support Backblaze and individual career objectives
• Build strong cross-functional relationships, most notably with Infrastructure Engineering, Customer Support, and Data Center Operations.
• Manage department budget
• Be an engaged, visible, and admired leader

The Right Fit:

• Proven experience in a similar leadership role within the MSP or Infrastructure-as-a-Service industry.
• Excellent collaboration and communication skills, including building high-performing teams and effectively interacting with colleagues across Backblaze and team members.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving abilities, with a data-driven approach to decision-making
• Significant experience in cloud-scale data center systems and services
• Significant experience in managing mission-critical operations of complex global infrastructure.
• A passion for process improvement and project management at scale
• 6+ years of management experience, with at least 3 years at the Director level
• 5+ years of hands-on technical experience in a field related to the team’s focus
• Six-Sigma training and/or certification a plus
• Ability to travel domestically and internationally as needed
• Remote - Continental USA OK, with experience managing remotely

Backblaze Perks:

• RSU grants for full-time employees
• Annual Company bonus plan
• Healthcare for family, including dental and vision
• 401K
• ESPP program
• Flexible vacation policy
• Maternity & paternity leave
• MacBook Pro for work plus a generous stipend to personalize your workstation
• Childcare bonus (human children only)
• Fertility treatment and support
• Learning & development program
• Commuter benefits
• A culture that supports a healthy work-life balance

To provide greater transparency to candidates, we share base pay ranges for all US-based job postings regardless of state. We set standard base pay ranges for all roles based on function, level, and country location, benchmarked against similar-stage growth companies. Final offer amounts include candidate location, skills, depth of work experience, and relevant licenses/credentials and may vary from the amounts listed below.

At Backblaze, we value being fair and good to our customers, partners, and employees. That’s why diversity, equity, and inclusion are at the core of our values. We are committed to fostering a workforce where all employees feel a sense of belonging regardless of race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, age, religion, socio-economic status, ability, veteran status, and education. We believe that our dedication to cultivating a diverse workspace not only allows us to better serve our customers in over 175 countries but also further reinforces our commitment to doing the right thing. We are proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer.

To understand more about the data we collect and process as part of your application, please view our Backblaze Employee Privacy Notice.