At a Glance
- Tasks: Drive proactive reliability improvements and teach teams incident response best practices.
- Company: Join IBM Software, a leader in AI-powered, cloud-native solutions.
- Benefits: Competitive salary, remote work options, and opportunities for continuous learning.
- Other info: Be part of a global team with excellent career growth potential.
- Why this job: Make a real impact on global digital transformation with cutting-edge technology.
- Qualifications: 10+ years in SRE or incident management, with cloud experience.
The predicted salary is between 60000 - 80000 £ per year.
At IBM Software, we transform client challenges into solutions. Building the world’s leading AI-powered, cloud-native products that shape the future of business and society. Our legacy of innovation creates endless opportunities for IBMers to learn, grow, and make an impact on a global scale. Working in Software means joining a team fueled by curiosity and collaboration. You’ll work with diverse technologies, partners, and industries to design, develop, and deliver solutions that power digital transformation.
With Confluent, data doesn’t sit still. We put information in motion, streaming in near real time so organizations can react faster, build smarter, and deliver experiences as dynamic as the world around them.
Confluent Cloud processes millions of events per second across AWS, GCP, and Azure. When incidents happen in a multi-cloud streaming platform, they happen at scale—data in motion, exactly‑once semantics, and cascading failure modes that require deep systems thinking. We need an expert‑level engineer who can drive proactive reliability improvements that prevent these incidents before they occur. This role combines hands‑on technical work with strategic program ownership. You’ll spend roughly 75% of your time on engineering: building automation, improving tooling, analyzing systemic failure patterns, and designing reliability improvements. The remaining 25% is teaching and coordination: coaching teams through post‑mortems, training incident commanders, and evolving our incident response practices. You’ll be part of a global team with follow‑the‑sun coverage, with clean handoffs that keep everyone working sustainable hours. This role sits within Cloud Architecture and Reliability – Supportability, a horizontal team that owns reliability standards and tooling across engineering. You’re the person who makes us need incident management less.
What You Will Do
- Analyze systemic failure patterns and design reliability improvements that prevent incident recurrence
- Own Rootly configuration, workflows, and integrations with PagerDuty, Jira, Confluence, and Slack
- Define and maintain SLO/SLA frameworks; use error budgets to guide reliability investments
- Own standards, practices, and continuous improvement of incident response across engineering
- Edit and review customer‑facing incident documents (CRCAs) to ensure quality and clarity
- Develop and deliver training programs; coach teams through post‑mortems
- Partner with engineering leaders to elevate reliability practices org‑wide
- Deep experience with observability: metrics, logging, tracing
- Kubernetes and container orchestration experience
- Understanding of CI/CD pipelines and release processes
- Strong written communication (design docs, runbooks, post‑mortems)
- Experience driving org‑wide process and cultural changes
Required Technical And Professional Expertise
- 10+ years of relevant experience in SRE, incident management, or reliability engineering
- Cloud experience with at least one of AWS, GCP, or Azure (we run all three)
- Experience navigating reliability/incident programs at 500+ engineer organizations
- Deep expertise with incident management tooling (Rootly, PagerDuty, or similar)
- Strong understanding of distributed systems and failure modes at scale
- Kafka/event streaming expertise preferred, or demonstrated rapid mastery of complex systems
Preferred Technical And Professional Experience
- Advanced Cloud Knowledge: Experience with cloud‑based infrastructure and its application in reliability and resiliency engineering.
- Specialized Scripting Skills: Proficiency in scripting languages and automation tools to optimize system reliability and performance.
Staff Site Reliability Engineer - Confluent Incident Management & Reliability employer: IBM
At IBM Software, we pride ourselves on fostering a culture of innovation and collaboration, where every employee is empowered to learn and grow. As a Staff Site Reliability Engineer, you will be at the forefront of cutting-edge technology in a dynamic environment that values continuous improvement and proactive problem-solving. With global reach and diverse opportunities for career advancement, IBM offers a unique platform for you to make a meaningful impact while working alongside some of the brightest minds in the industry.
StudySmarter Expert Advice🤫
We think this is how you could land Staff Site Reliability Engineer - Confluent Incident Management & Reliability
✨Join Local Tech Meetups
Get out there and mingle with fellow developers by joining local tech meetups. It’s a fantastic way to meet people who might be working at IBM or know someone who does. Plus, you can pick up some trendy tech skills and trends while you're at it!
✨Contribute to Open Source Projects
Show off your coding chops by jumping into open-source projects. Not only does this give you practical experience, but it also gets you noticed in the dev community. You'll create a killer portfolio that speaks volumes about your skills to IBM.
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We think you need these skills to ace Staff Site Reliability Engineer - Confluent Incident Management & Reliability
Some tips for your application 🫡
Show off your coding skills:When applying for a software engineering role, it's super important to showcase your coding skills. Make sure your CV includes your tech stack, any relevant programming languages you’re comfortable with, and examples of projects you've worked on. If you have a GitHub profile, link it up! We love to see code in action.
Tailor your portfolio:For a full-time role, we’d expect to see some solid examples of your work in your portfolio. Make sure to include at least two or three projects that highlight your problem-solving skills and your ability to work with different technologies. Focus on the projects that are most relevant to the position at IBM.
Craft a killer cover letter:Your cover letter is your chance to stand out—make it personal! Explain why you want to work at IBM and how your skills align with the role. Show us your passion for software development. We dig enthusiastic candidates who understand the value of collaboration and continuous learning!
Be clear and concise:When it comes to writing your CV and cover letter, clarity is key. Avoid jargon that could confuse us and stick to simple, direct language. Highlight your achievements with quantifiable results where possible, and keep everything easy to read. A well-organised application goes a long way!
How to prepare for a job interview at IBM
✨Brush Up on Your Coding Skills
For a full-time software engineering role, it's crucial that we stay sharp with our coding abilities. Expect technical questions that might involve solving problems on the spot or discussing algorithms. Practise on platforms like LeetCode or HackerRank to get comfortable with the types of questions that often come up.
✨Know Your Tools and Frameworks
Make sure we’re well-acquainted with the tools and technologies listed in the job description. Familiarise ourselves with any specific frameworks or programming languages mentioned. If IBM uses React or Node.js, for instance, be ready to discuss how we’ve used them in previous projects or coursework.
✨Showcase Your Projects
Bring along a portfolio that highlights our best work. This could be code samples, GitHub repositories, or any side projects we’ve built. Make sure we can talk through our thought process for each project, especially the challenges we faced and how we solved them—this shows our problem-solving skills in action.
✨Prepare for Behavioural Questions
While technical skills are key, full-time positions also require cultural fit. Be ready to discuss our previous experiences and how we handle teamwork, conflict, and deadlines. Brush up on the STAR method—Situation, Task, Action, Result—to clearly articulate our past experiences when discussing how we've contributed to a team.
