Site Reliability Engineer Jobs in California
Site Reliability Engineer jobs in California are concentrated in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, and San Diego, where companies like Google, Meta, and Salesforce maintain large engineering campuses and hire continuously at levels from junior SRE to principal and staff engineer. Demand is strongest for specialists in Kubernetes orchestration, cloud infrastructure on AWS and GCP, and distributed systems observability. California is among the most active markets in the country for this role, with openings across fintech, enterprise software, and consumer technology at any given time. Find a role that fits below and apply directly.
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Showing 5 of 221+ Site Reliability Engineer jobs
About Varda
Low Earth orbit is open for business. Varda is accelerating the development of commercial space infrastructure, from in-orbit pharmaceutical processing to reliable and economical reentry capsules. Varda's W-Series vehicles are built, designed, and operated by Varda in-house, including the pharmaceutical processing payloads, the capsules, the C-PICA heat shields, and the satellite buses.
From life-saving pharmaceuticals to more powerful fiber optics, there is a world of products used on Earth today that can only be manufactured in space. Varda is accelerating innovation in the orbital economy by creating both the products and infrastructure needed so space can directly benefit life on Earth. Our mission is to expand the economic bounds of humankind.
Our team is uniquely suited to accomplishing this goal, with leadership and staff comprised of veterans from SpaceX, Blue Origin, major pharmaceutical companies and Silicon Valley. Varda was founded in January 2021 by Will Bruey and Delian Asparouhov with significant backing from world class investors including Khosla Ventures, Lux Capital, Founders Fund, Caffeinated Capital, General Catalyst, and Also Capital.
Varda is headquartered in El Segundo, California, where we have offices and a production facility where our vehicles, equipment, and materials are built, integrated, and tested. Varda also has offices in Washington, DC and Huntsville, AL.
Join Varda, and work to create a bustling in-space ecosystem.
About This Role
At Varda Space Industries, we're pushing the boundaries of what's possible in space and materials science — and we're looking for bold engineers to help us get there. As a Senior Site Reliability Engineer, you'll be critical in building, scaling, and maintaining the infrastructure that powers our systems on Earth, in orbit, and everything in between.
We are looking for an experienced engineer with deep working knowledge of Kubernetes and containerized technologies. You are a hands-on operator and builder who applies first-principles thinking to both software delivery (DevOps) and production reliability (SRE), and thrives in complex, mission-critical environments.
In this role, you will:
- Solve challenging technical problems across a wide range of modern technologies.
- Apply a software engineering mindset to automate operations and improve system reliability, scalability, and resilience
- Design and build infrastructure that enables rapid development — from cloud-based services to embedded software running on spacecraft.
- Shape Varda's infrastructure strategy and drive operational excellence across containerized and modernized environments.
Responsibilities
- Deploy, maintain, and operate mission-critical applications and infrastructure supporting spacecraft and company-wide systems.
- Build and evolve Infrastructure as Code (IaC) frameworks using tools such as Terraform
- Implement and operate observability systems (metrics, logging, tracing) and actionable alerting.
- Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines to enable safe, repeatable, and rapid deployments.
- Partner with software and hardware engineers to deliver highly operable, reliable, and scalable systems and pipelines, ensuring they have the tools and infrastructure needed for rapid iteration.
- Identify, analyze, and resolve system bottlenecks and reliability risks; perform performance tuning and implement long-term stability improvements.
- Respond to and resolve production incidents; perform root cause analysis and drive corrective actions through blameless postmortems.
- Rotate through the team's on-call schedule to keep critical systems healthy and responsive.
- Must be willing to work extended hours and weekends as needed
- Occasionally travel to customer sites and other Varda locations to troubleshoot, deploy, or test critical infrastructure.
Basic Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in computer science, engineering, or related STEM field with 5+ years of Site Reliability Engineering experience, or 7+ years of progressive experience in DevOps, SRE, or Systems Engineering in lieu of a degree.
- Experience with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using tools like Terraform to automate server provisioning and configuration management
- Experience operating Kubernetes or similar container orchestration platforms in production environments.
- Experience with Prometheus, Grafana, InfluxDB, or similar technologies.
- Knowledge of software-defined networking (VPC, Subnets, Firewalls, VPNs, etc.)
- Python, Bash, PowerShell (or similar) scripting experience
- Positive and strong communication skills, both written and oral
Preferred Skills and Experience
- Experience in provisioning and managing scalable Azure cloud infrastructure using native tools and best practices
- Experience implementing configuration management, provisioning, and workflow automation solutions via Infrastructure as Code, CI/CD, and GitOps (e.g., Ansible, Salt, ArgoCD, etc).
- Strong understanding of Linux systems and container runtimes (e.g., containerd, Docker)
- Experience with GPU workloads or high-throughput computing.
- Hands-on experience operating and optimizing High Performance Computing (HPC) environments, including workload schedulers such as Slurm (e.g., queue/partition design, fair-share scheduling, and cluster resource management).
- Experience with hybrid environments (cloud + on-prem or edge systems)
- Experience debugging distributed systems at scale (network, storage, latency)
- Experience with databases and data modeling
Pay Range
- Site Reliability Engineer: $153,000.00 - $185,000.00/per year
- This role is on-site in El Segundo, CA
- Leveling and base salary are determined by job-related skills, education level, experience level, and job performance
- You will be eligible for long-term incentives in the form of stock options and/or long-term cash awards
ITAR Requirements
Varda, like all employers, must ensure that its employees working in the United States are lawfully authorized to work in the U.S. Additionally, our employees are exposed to and have access to certain export-controlled items. Because our employees are provided access to export-controlled items, our policy is to only hire "U.S. persons" who are permitted to have access to our technology without an export license.
"US person" means: U.S. citizen, U.S. lawful permanent resident, or protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3) (i.e., individual admitted to the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum).
E-Verify Statement
Varda Space Industries, Inc. participates in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security E-Verify program. The E-Verify program is an Internet-based employment eligibility verification system operated by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Learn more about the E-Verify program.
E-Verify Notice Right To Work Notice
Read more Read more
Varda Space Industries is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. Candidates and employees are always evaluated based on merit, qualifications, and performance. We will never discriminate on the basis of race, color, gender, national origin, ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, martial status, mental or physical disability, or any other legally protected status.
About Varda
Low Earth orbit is open for business. Varda is accelerating the development of commercial space infrastructure, from in-orbit pharmaceutical processing to reliable and economical reentry capsules. Varda's W-Series vehicles are built, designed, and operated by Varda in-house, including the pharmaceutical processing payloads, the capsules, the C-PICA heat shields, and the satellite buses.
From life-saving pharmaceuticals to more powerful fiber optics, there is a world of products used on Earth today that can only be manufactured in space. Varda is accelerating innovation in the orbital economy by creating both the products and infrastructure needed so space can directly benefit life on Earth. Our mission is to expand the economic bounds of humankind.
Our team is uniquely suited to accomplishing this goal, with leadership and staff comprised of veterans from SpaceX, Blue Origin, major pharmaceutical companies and Silicon Valley. Varda was founded in January 2021 by Will Bruey and Delian Asparouhov with significant backing from world class investors including Khosla Ventures, Lux Capital, Founders Fund, Caffeinated Capital, General Catalyst, and Also Capital.
Varda is headquartered in El Segundo, California, where we have offices and a production facility where our vehicles, equipment, and materials are built, integrated, and tested. Varda also has offices in Washington, DC and Huntsville, AL.
Join Varda, and work to create a bustling in-space ecosystem.
About This Role
At Varda Space Industries, we're pushing the boundaries of what's possible in space and materials science — and we're looking for bold engineers to help us get there. As a Senior Site Reliability Engineer, you'll be critical in building, scaling, and maintaining the infrastructure that powers our systems on Earth, in orbit, and everything in between.
We are looking for an experienced engineer with deep working knowledge of Kubernetes and containerized technologies. You are a hands-on operator and builder who applies first-principles thinking to both software delivery (DevOps) and production reliability (SRE), and thrives in complex, mission-critical environments.
In this role, you will:
- Solve challenging technical problems across a wide range of modern technologies.
- Apply a software engineering mindset to automate operations and improve system reliability, scalability, and resilience
- Design and build infrastructure that enables rapid development — from cloud-based services to embedded software running on spacecraft.
- Shape Varda's infrastructure strategy and drive operational excellence across containerized and modernized environments.
Responsibilities
- Deploy, maintain, and operate mission-critical applications and infrastructure supporting spacecraft and company-wide systems.
- Build and evolve Infrastructure as Code (IaC) frameworks using tools such as Terraform
- Implement and operate observability systems (metrics, logging, tracing) and actionable alerting.
- Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines to enable safe, repeatable, and rapid deployments.
- Partner with software and hardware engineers to deliver highly operable, reliable, and scalable systems and pipelines, ensuring they have the tools and infrastructure needed for rapid iteration.
- Identify, analyze, and resolve system bottlenecks and reliability risks; perform performance tuning and implement long-term stability improvements.
- Respond to and resolve production incidents; perform root cause analysis and drive corrective actions through blameless postmortems.
- Rotate through the team's on-call schedule to keep critical systems healthy and responsive.
- Must be willing to work extended hours and weekends as needed
- Occasionally travel to customer sites and other Varda locations to troubleshoot, deploy, or test critical infrastructure.
Basic Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in computer science, engineering, or related STEM field with 5+ years of Site Reliability Engineering experience, or 7+ years of progressive experience in DevOps, SRE, or Systems Engineering in lieu of a degree.
- Experience with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using tools like Terraform to automate server provisioning and configuration management
- Experience operating Kubernetes or similar container orchestration platforms in production environments.
- Experience with Prometheus, Grafana, InfluxDB, or similar technologies.
- Knowledge of software-defined networking (VPC, Subnets, Firewalls, VPNs, etc.)
- Python, Bash, PowerShell (or similar) scripting experience
- Positive and strong communication skills, both written and oral
Preferred Skills and Experience
- Experience in provisioning and managing scalable Azure cloud infrastructure using native tools and best practices
- Experience implementing configuration management, provisioning, and workflow automation solutions via Infrastructure as Code, CI/CD, and GitOps (e.g., Ansible, Salt, ArgoCD, etc).
- Strong understanding of Linux systems and container runtimes (e.g., containerd, Docker)
- Experience with GPU workloads or high-throughput computing.
- Hands-on experience operating and optimizing High Performance Computing (HPC) environments, including workload schedulers such as Slurm (e.g., queue/partition design, fair-share scheduling, and cluster resource management).
- Experience with hybrid environments (cloud + on-prem or edge systems)
- Experience debugging distributed systems at scale (network, storage, latency)
- Experience with databases and data modeling
Pay Range
- Site Reliability Engineer: $153,000.00 - $185,000.00/per year
- This role is on-site in El Segundo, CA
- Leveling and base salary are determined by job-related skills, education level, experience level, and job performance
- You will be eligible for long-term incentives in the form of stock options and/or long-term cash awards
ITAR Requirements
Varda, like all employers, must ensure that its employees working in the United States are lawfully authorized to work in the U.S. Additionally, our employees are exposed to and have access to certain export-controlled items. Because our employees are provided access to export-controlled items, our policy is to only hire "U.S. persons" who are permitted to have access to our technology without an export license.
"US person" means: U.S. citizen, U.S. lawful permanent resident, or protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3) (i.e., individual admitted to the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum).
E-Verify Statement
Varda Space Industries, Inc. participates in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security E-Verify program. The E-Verify program is an Internet-based employment eligibility verification system operated by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Learn more about the E-Verify program.
E-Verify Notice Right To Work Notice
Read more Read more
Varda Space Industries is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. Candidates and employees are always evaluated based on merit, qualifications, and performance. We will never discriminate on the basis of race, color, gender, national origin, ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, martial status, mental or physical disability, or any other legally protected status.
See All 221+ Site Reliability Engineer Jobs in California
Find roles in California that match your experience and apply in just a few clicks.
Find JobsSite Reliability Engineer Jobs by City in California
Where California roles are concentrated, by current openings.
Site Reliability Engineer Job Market in California
A snapshot from current California openings, updated as new roles post.
Who's Hiring
- Apple13
- SpaceX12
- Tesla11
- Google10
- ByteDance7
Top Industries Hiring
- Technology & Software27
- Manufacturing3
- Consumer Goods3
- Aerospace & Defense3
- Electronics & Hardware3
What California Employers Look For
The qualifications that appear most often in site reliability engineer jobs across California.
- Bachelor's degree in computer science, software engineering, or a related technical field
- Proficiency with container orchestration tools such as Kubernetes and Docker
- Experience with at least one major cloud platform including AWS, GCP, or Azure
- Strong scripting and automation skills in Python, Go, Bash, or similar languages
- Familiarity with observability and monitoring stacks such as Prometheus, Grafana, or Datadog
- Experience defining and maintaining service level objectives and incident response processes
Site Reliability Engineer Jobs in California: Frequently Asked Questions
How do you become a site reliability engineer in California?
Site reliability engineering requires no state-issued license in California, so the path runs through education and demonstrated technical skills. Most California employers expect a bachelor's degree in computer science, software engineering, or systems engineering from a four-year university. From there, candidates typically move into SRE roles from software development or systems administration backgrounds, building experience with cloud infrastructure, on-call operations, and automation before applying to dedicated SRE positions at California technology companies.
Which companies hire site reliability engineers in California?
California site reliability engineer roles are posted by Apple, SpaceX, and Tesla and others right now, based on current listings on Migrate Mate as of November 2026. California's concentration of enterprise software, cloud services, and consumer technology companies makes it one of the most consistent states for ongoing SRE hiring across seniority levels.
Which California cities have the most site reliability engineer jobs?
San Francisco, San Jose, and Santa Clara have the most site reliability engineer openings in California. The Bay Area leads because it is home to the headquarters of the largest cloud, enterprise software, and social media companies in the country, while Los Angeles draws SRE demand from its growing fintech and media technology sectors, and San Diego contributes through its defense technology and biotech-adjacent software firms.
Are there remote site reliability engineer jobs in California?
Yes, and more than most fields. About 64% of site reliability engineer openings tied to California are remote or hybrid as of November 2026, reflecting how well the core work of incident response, automation, and infrastructure management translates to distributed teams. The parts of the role most often done remotely include on-call engineering, monitoring work, and infrastructure-as-code development, while some employers require on-site presence for data center operations or regulated environments.
How can I get hired as a site reliability engineer in California with little or no experience?
The most realistic entry path is moving laterally from a systems administrator, DevOps engineer, or software developer role, since California employers like Google, Meta, and Salesforce commonly hire into associate or junior SRE roles from those backgrounds. Large California technology companies run internship and new-graduate programs that place candidates directly into SRE teams. Building hands-on experience with Kubernetes, cloud platforms, and infrastructure automation through projects or open-source contributions, and earning a cloud certification such as the Google Professional Cloud DevOps Engineer or AWS DevOps Professional, gives candidates a concrete edge in California hiring pipelines.
Where can I find and apply to site reliability engineer jobs in California?
You can find and apply to site reliability engineer jobs in California on Migrate Mate, which lists current California openings updated regularly. Search for roles that match your experience level and specialization, then apply directly to the ones that fit your background and location preferences.
See All 221+ Site Reliability Engineer Jobs in California
Find roles in California that match your experience and apply in just a few clicks.
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