[Hiring] Senior Site Reliability Engineer @Jackbox Games

Jackbox Games is looking for an exceptional Site Reliability Engineer (with Go Experience) to join our remote team.

Who are We?

Jackbox is a small game studio (~80 people) best known for our Jackbox Party Pack franchise: a set of five social party games released every fall. Since 2014, our games--like Quiplash, Drawful, and Trivia Murder Party-- have been featured on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, by Polygon, and in living rooms and finished basements across the world.

In 2020, we had over 200 million users. And we have hard evidence that one of those users was Academy Award-winner Charlize Theron.

You can learn everything you ever wanted to know about how our games work (spoiler: your phone is the controller!) and who we are and what we make at jackboxgames.com.

What's the job?

As a Site Reliability Engineer, you will be instrumental in maintaining our AWS-based infrastructure’s high availability, performance, and scalability. In this role, 70% of your time will focus on SRE responsibilities, with a strong emphasis on managing containerized applications via ECS, monitoring, incident response, and ensuring release reliability through automated testing. The remaining 30% will involve building and maintaining applications in Go to support users and game functionality. You’ll also mentor peers, helping to upskill the team in SRE practices.

Key Responsibilities

• SRE Operations (70%)
• Reliability & Availability: Architect and manage high-availability, resilient systems on AWS ECS to support user experiences and game performance in line with service-level objectives.
• Infrastructure as Code & Automation: Use ECS for container orchestration and Terraform to automate infrastructure provisioning, ensuring repeatability and scalability.
• Monitoring & Incident Response: Improve observability using tools like CloudWatch, Prometheus, and Grafana; lead incident response and root cause analysis to improve system reliability.
• Testing Automation for Release Reliability: Develop and maintain automated testing frameworks that integrate with deployment pipelines to ensure reliable releases, minimizing deployment risks and improving system stability.
• Performance Optimization: Continuously assess and optimize system performance, ensuring efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and minimal latency.
• Team Development: Mentor team members in SRE best practices, helping to build a more resilient and skilled team.

• Application Development (30%)
• Support Applications & Tools: Develop backend applications in Go to enhance user experience and support core game functionality.
• Automation & Tooling: Build tools to streamline SRE workflows, automate operational tasks, and support infrastructure operations.
• Deployment Enhancements: Support efficient CI/CD workflows for infrastructure and application updates, improving deployment speed and reliability.
• Documentation & Knowledge Sharing: Participate in code reviews and documentation, ensuring best practices are accessible across the team.

Requirements

• Experience: 5+ years in SRE, DevOps, or similar roles with AWS-based infrastructure experience.
• Go Development: Strong skills in Go, with experience in backend applications and tools.
• AWS Expertise: Proficient with core AWS services, including ECS, EC2, and S3.
• Containerization & IaC: Hands-on experience with ECS and Terraform for managing infrastructure as code.
• Observability & Monitoring: Experience with monitoring tools like CloudWatch, Prometheus, and / or Grafana for observability and alerting.
• Testing Automation: Proven experience in setting up and managing automated testing frameworks for release reliability.
• Scripting & Automation: Skilled in scripting (Go, Python, or Bash) for automation and operational efficiency.
• Mentorship: Proven ability to guide and develop peers’ expertise in SRE and DevOps best practices.

Okay, but what are the perks?

• Pay range: $103,326 - $190,465. Please note: individual compensation packages are based on factors unique to each candidate and position, including (but not limited to) skill set, experience, and qualifications.

• 401(k) with matching and various medical plans. We pay 100% of the cost of premiums for dental, vision, disability, and life insurance for our employees. We also cover a really nice chunk of the cost of premiums for spouse/partner/dependent medical, dental, and vision insurance. 
• Flexible work schedule and environment. Currently, our employees are encouraged to work where they feel the safest and most productive. Our office in Lincoln Park in Chicago is open (and fully stocked with snacks) for folks who prefer to work in the office. We also offer remote work in the following states: California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin.
• Flexible PTO. Take time off when you need to recharge, take a trip, or just catch up on life.
• Annual stipends for therapy, education, wellness, and home office equipment to encourage our employees’ lifelong learning pursuits and support mental and physical health.
• Creative work environment. We are lucky to work in a place that is full of talented and innovative folks. Most of the day, the place is pretty quiet (we’re a focused bunch), but this is punctuated with hilarious outbursts and general merriment.
• Free food either virtually or in the office. We stock our kitchen with snacks as well as offer doordash credits quite frequently.

Interested?

Great, we look forward to reading your application. Please include:

• Your resume.
• A cover letter. You don't need to be a professional writer for this job (we have those) but communication is important so we weigh cover letters heavily.

On the fence? If you're interested in the job but worried you aren't qualified, we encourage you to err on the side of applying. We'd hate to miss out on great candidates just because they're worried they don't check every box on the job description.

We know it is a time commitment to prepare an application and we respect that effort by thoughtfully reviewing every complete application and responding one way or the other. But that kind of thoughtful review means that it sometimes takes us a while to get back to applicants, so please be patient with us and no phone calls.