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For Companies At a Glance
- Tasks: Own and optimise the infrastructure for a fast-growing social music platform.
- Company: Equals, the world's largest social music network connecting millions of users.
- Benefits: Competitive salary, equity package, private health insurance, and office lunches.
- Other info: Enjoy a dynamic work environment with regular team socials and growth opportunities.
- Why this job: Make a real impact on user experience while working with cutting-edge technology.
- Qualifications: Strong AWS experience, infrastructure-as-code skills, and PostgreSQL knowledge required.
The predicted salary is between 90000 - 90000 £ per year.
ABOUT EQUALS
Equals is the world's largest social music network with over a million users, growing exponentially month to month. We connect people through the music they love - fans discover new people, collect tracks, and connect in artist chatrooms. Our platform serves users across the world with real-time chat, music streaming, and a recommendation engine that matches people by musical taste.
THE ROLE
We're looking for a Site Reliability Engineer to own the infrastructure, observability, and operational health of the Equals platform. You'll be the person who monitors systems needs and health to provide a seamless user experience while providing traceability of system needs or failures. This is a sole-ownership role. You'll be responsible for our entire cloud infrastructure, CI/CD pipelines, monitoring stack, data pipelines, and database performance. You'll work closely with our engineers but your focus is the platform underneath - not feature development.
WHAT YOU'LL OWN
- Infrastructure & Cloud - Manage and evolve our AWS infrastructure via Pulumi (TypeScript): ECS/Fargate services, RDS (PostgreSQL 17), ElastiCache (Redis with read replicas), S3, SQS, ALB, Lambda; Scale infrastructure up and down for large data operations (e.g. music catalog ingestion of 1B rows); Manage Cloudflare (WAF, bot management, DNS, firewall rules); Make cost-conscious infrastructure decisions - right-sizing instances, storage tiering, optimizing spend.
- Monitoring & Observability - Own the Datadog APM setup: tracing, alerting, dashboards, log management; Maintain and tune alert channels integrated with Slack; Reduce alert fatigue by tuning thresholds, suppressing false positives, and downgrading non-actionable errors; Be the first responder when something breaks in production.
- Reliability & Incident Response - Investigate and resolve production incidents end-to-end: detection, root cause analysis, fix, and post-mortem; Handle database performance issues: slow query identification, index creation, query optimization, connection pool tuning; Manage queue system reliability (BullMQ on Redis): concurrency tuning, rate limiting, stalled job handling, autoscaling; Ensure graceful handling of failovers, deployments, and edge cases across all services.
- Data Pipelines & Warehouse - Manage the Airbyte replication pipeline from production database to data warehouse; Configure incremental replication for new tables as the product evolves; Maintain the data warehouse (PostgreSQL): autovacuum tuning, memory parameters, capacity planning; Manage RudderStack for event streaming to analytics (Amplitude) and attribution (AppsFlyer).
- CI/CD & Deployment - Own CircleCI pipeline configuration and reliability; Manage ECS deployment strategies, health checks, and rollout verification; Maintain test environments and cleanup automation.
WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR
Must Have
- Strong experience with AWS (ECS/Fargate, RDS, ElastiCache, S3, ALB, SQS at minimum).
- Infrastructure-as-code experience - ideally Pulumi, but Terraform or CDK background is fine.
- Deep PostgreSQL knowledge: performance tuning, indexing strategies, query optimization, connection pooling.
- Experience with Redis at scale: clustering, read replicas, failover handling.
- Solid understanding of container orchestration and deployment strategies.
- Experience with monitoring and observability platforms (Datadog preferred).
- Comfort with incident response: you've been paged at 2am and know how to stay calm, diagnose, and fix.
- Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines (CircleCI, GitHub Actions, or similar).
Nice to Have
- Experience with Pulumi specifically (TypeScript).
- Experience with data replication tools (Airbyte, Fivetran, or similar).
- Experience with event streaming platforms (RudderStack, Segment, or similar).
- Familiarity with BullMQ or similar Redis-based queue systems.
- Experience with Cloudflare (WAF, bot management).
- Familiarity with NestJS / Node.js backend architectures (you won't be building features, but understanding how the backend works helps you support it).
- Experience scaling platforms through rapid growth phases.
OUR STACK
Infrastructure: AWS (ECS, RDS, ElastiCache, S3, SQS, ALB, Lambda), Pulumi (TypeScript); Security/CDN: Cloudflare (WAF, bot management, DNS); Monitoring: Datadog APM; CI/CD: CircleCI; Backend: NestJS, Node.js (v24), TypeScript, Prisma ORM, raw SQL; Database: PostgreSQL 17, Redis (ElastiCache); Queues: BullMQ; Data Pipelines: Airbyte, RudderStack; Chat: GetStream (Stream.io); Analytics: Amplitude, AppsFlyer; Payments: Stripe, Apple IAP.
WHY THIS ROLE MATTERS
Equals is scaling fast and the infrastructure needs to keep up. You'll be the person the team relies on to keep the platform healthy as we grow. When traffic spikes, you scale it. When something breaks, you fix it. When we need to ingest a billion rows of music catalog data, you make sure the database doesn't run out of storage. You'll have full autonomy over infrastructure decisions and a direct impact on every user's experience.
COMPENSATION
Competitive salary (£90k) and equity package (£100k).
PERKS
Laptop and other necessary equipment provided; Office lunch on the house when you visit; Regular socials with the team; Private health insurance.
Site Reliability Engineer in London employer: equals
Contact Detail:
equals Recruiting Team
StudySmarter Expert Advice 🤫
We think this is how you could land Site Reliability Engineer in London
✨Tip Number 1
Network like a pro! Reach out to current or former employees at Equals on LinkedIn. A friendly chat can give you insider info and maybe even a referral, which can really boost your chances.
✨Tip Number 2
Show off your skills in real-time! Consider setting up a personal project or contributing to open-source that showcases your expertise in AWS, PostgreSQL, or CI/CD. This gives you something tangible to discuss during interviews.
✨Tip Number 3
Prepare for the technical interview by brushing up on incident response scenarios. Think of examples where you’ve tackled production issues head-on. Being able to articulate your thought process will impress the hiring team.
✨Tip Number 4
Don’t forget to apply through our website! It’s the best way to ensure your application gets seen by the right people. Plus, it shows you’re genuinely interested in joining the Equals team.
We think you need these skills to ace Site Reliability Engineer in London
Some tips for your application 🫡
Tailor Your CV: Make sure your CV is tailored to the Site Reliability Engineer role. Highlight your experience with AWS, PostgreSQL, and any relevant infrastructure-as-code tools like Pulumi or Terraform. We want to see how your skills match what we're looking for!
Craft a Compelling Cover Letter: Your cover letter is your chance to shine! Share your passion for music and technology, and explain why you’re excited about working at Equals. Let us know how your background makes you the perfect fit for this role.
Showcase Your Problem-Solving Skills: In your application, don’t just list your skills—give us examples of how you've tackled challenges in previous roles. Whether it’s resolving production incidents or optimising database performance, we want to hear your success stories!
Apply Through Our Website: We encourage you to apply directly through our website. It’s the best way for us to receive your application and ensures you’re considered for the role. Plus, it shows us you’re keen on joining our team!
How to prepare for a job interview at equals
✨Know Your Tech Stack
Make sure you’re well-versed in the technologies mentioned in the job description, especially AWS services like ECS, RDS, and ElastiCache. Brush up on your knowledge of PostgreSQL performance tuning and Redis management, as these will likely come up during technical discussions.
✨Demonstrate Problem-Solving Skills
Prepare to discuss past incidents you've managed, particularly those involving production issues. Be ready to explain your thought process during incident response, including how you diagnosed problems and implemented fixes. This shows you can stay calm under pressure and think critically.
✨Familiarise Yourself with Infrastructure as Code
Since the role involves managing infrastructure via Pulumi, it’s crucial to understand infrastructure as code principles. If you have experience with Terraform or CDK, be prepared to discuss how those skills translate to Pulumi, and maybe even share examples of your work.
✨Ask Insightful Questions
Interviews are a two-way street! Prepare thoughtful questions about Equals' infrastructure challenges, team dynamics, or future growth plans. This not only shows your interest in the role but also helps you gauge if the company is the right fit for you.