Staff Network Reliability Engineer- Cloud Operations

The world still has coverage blind spots. You could help eliminate them at Skylo.

Skylo has pioneered a standards-based approach to satellite connectivity. We connect smartphones and IoT devices directly to satellites. No special hardware no entirely new networks. Just billions of existing devices suddenly reachable anywhere on Earth. Were not building toward this future. Were already in it.

Our direct-to-device service is live on millions of activated devices across five continents covering more than 72 million square kilometers in partnership with leading satellite operators mobile network operators Tier-1 chipset makers and OEMs worldwide. And were just getting started.

At the heart of it all is Skylos commercial NTN vRAN: a 3GPP standards-based cloud-native platform that seamlessly bridges terrestrial and satellite networks. Its the infrastructure that makes true anywhere anytime connectivity possible.

When you join Skylo youll work at the intersection of three markets reshaping how the world stays connected: mass-market consumer devices automotive and industrial IoT. Enabling people outdoors and critical workflows in the worlds most remote places.

This is a rare chance to work on technology that matters at a company thats already proving it works

SUMMARY: HOW YOU WILL IMPACT SKYLO

As a Staff Network Reliability Engineer Cloud Operations in the Global Product Support & Customer Success organization you are the Cloud Infrastructure domain authority within Skylos production NTN network. Everything runs on the infrastructure you keep healthy RAN NFs Core NFs OSS BSS and the observability pipeline itself. When a GKE node fails when ArgoCD drifts when a Persistent Volume Claim goes unavailable when a PostgreSQL replica falls behind when Prometheus WAL corrupts you own the response.

You operate across Skylos full hybrid cloud estate: GCP public cloud (GKE clusters Pub/Sub pipelines Cloud SQL) and on-premise private cloud infrastructure (bare-metal Kubernetes hyperconverged compute software-defined storage). You own 247 platform health the observability pipeline (Prometheus VictoriaMetrics Grafana OpenTelemetry) persistent storage operations (PostgreSQL Redis) and the operational interface with Network Implementation for all GitOps-driven infrastructure changes.

At Staff NRE level you go beyond keeping the lights on. You define and maintain SLOs tied to network SLA commitments own error budget tracking drive toil reduction and partner with Ops Platform Engineering to automate the infrastructure remediation loop. You are the last technical stop before a Cloud Infrastructure problem becomes an engineering escalation and you are a force multiplier mentoring Senior NREs and contributing the operational requirements that shape Skylos platform roadmap.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Cloud Infrastructure Operations & Health Ownership

• Own 247 cloud infrastructure health across Skylos hybrid production environment: GKE cluster node status namespace and pod health Persistent Volume Claim availability network policies and multi-cluster federation across Skylos GCP footprint.

• Own on-premise Kubernetes cluster health: bare-metal node availability container runtime stability CNI networking persistent storage arrays (Ceph/Rook or equivalent) and hyperconverged compute platform operations (Harvester KubeVirt or KVM).

• Monitor and triage infrastructure alarms using OSS dashboards Grafana/VictoriaMetrics telemetry GCP Cloud Monitoring and Loki log correlation distinguish transient platform events from systemic infrastructure degradation.

• Execute and own Cloud Infra runbooks for P2P4 fault categories: GKE node recovery pod eviction and rescheduling PVC repair database failover execution Prometheus WAL corruption recovery ArgoCD drift remediation and certificate rotation without requiring engineering involvement for covered fault classes.

• Own BSS-IIS GKE cluster monitoring and infrastructure health; maintain runbooks that reflect current cluster topology after every infrastructure change.

Observability Pipeline & Data Platform Operations

• Own the observability pipeline end-to-end: Prometheus scrape target integrity VictoriaMetrics retention and query performance Grafana dashboard coverage and accuracy OpenTelemetry collector health and alert routing via Pub/Sub to the OSS.

• Maintain database reliability: PostgreSQL streaming replication health backup and restore procedures failover testing query performance monitoring; Redis cluster operations eviction policy management and persistence configuration.

• Ensure log aggregation pipeline health (Loki or ELK): ingestion rates retention policies query performance and completeness the observability stack must be operational before the network events it monitors can be triaged.

• Partner with NI (Network Implementation & Infrastructure) on all planned infrastructure changes: receive advance notice validate post-deployment observability and sign off on operational readiness before the change window closes.

Cloud Infrastructure Incident Diagnosis & Escalation Authority

• Serve as the L3 escalation authority for all Cloud Infra incidents: take ownership from the Incident Manager diagnose at the Kubernetes storage network and database layer using kubectl GCP console node logs and infrastructure telemetry and deliver a resolution or a decision-grade root cause.

• Lead Cloud Infra troubleshooting bridges: command the technical investigation for GKE node failures cluster upgrade failures storage outages PubSub pipeline disruptions database failover events and ArgoCD sync failures drive to resolution or clear engineering handoff.

• Diagnose and resolve infrastructure failure modes: node NotReady conditions pod CrashLoopBackOff chains PVC mount failures CSI driver errors network policy misconfigurations Helm release drift etcd latency spikes and cross-cluster federation breaks.

• Participate in the global 247 on-call rotation as the Cloud Infra domain escalation tier reachable within defined SLA windows for Sev 1 events; function as the technical decision-maker not the first responder.

SLO Engineering & Reliability

• Define and maintain SLOs for all Cloud Infra components: GKE control plane availability database query latency storage IOPS message pipeline throughput and observability stack uptime tied directly to network SLA commitments to MNO partners.

• Own error budget tracking and the process for trading error budget against deployment velocity; escalate when error budget burn rate requires engineering intervention or deployment freezes.

• Drive toil reduction: identify and eliminate manual Cloud Infra procedures; own the roadmap to automated cluster recovery rolling restarts storage repair and certificate rotation in partnership with Ops Platform Engineering.

• Lead capacity planning for compute storage and network resources across public and private cloud forecast growth based on subscriber projections and new MNO partner onboarding.

Root Cause Analysis & Post-Incident Ownership

• Own Cloud Infra RCA end-to-end: lead the investigation document the complete causal chain from infrastructure trigger through upstream NF impact and deliver systemic action items with owners timelines and measurable success criteria.

• Deliver Initial RCA documentation within defined SLA windows; identify systemic infrastructure failure patterns cluster upgrade regressions storage controller bugs network policy drift resource exhaustion trends and translate them into engineering requirements.

• Contribute to the weekly and monthly Network Performance Report: infrastructure availability database latency trends storage IOPS observability pipeline health and SLA deviation analysis.

Runbook Authorship & Operational Standards

• Author own and maintain all Cloud Infra runbooks and SOPs: GKE node recovery database failover storage expansion Prometheus WAL repair ArgoCD rollback certificate rotation and cluster upgrade procedures every procedure tested before production reliance.

• Define the diagnostic decision tree for each known infrastructure fault class: entry condition triage steps isolation method resolution action and escalation criteria written at the level where a Senior NRE can execute independently.

• Validate and sign off on operational readiness for all infrastructure changes: DCI/DCE build-outs GKE cluster expansions Kubernetes version upgrades and new on-premise hardware deployments.

Cross-Functional Collaboration & Team Development

• Partner with OPE as the Cloud Infra domains primary automation consumer: define Kubernetes event schemas alert-to-action contracts and closed-loop policy requirements for infrastructure auto-remediation.

• Represent Cloud Infra in NI architecture reviews: define observability and operational readiness requirements for all infrastructure expansions and GitOps pipeline changes before go-live.

• Collaborate with Core NRE and RAN NRE on infrastructure-layer issues affecting network functions: pod scheduling PVC availability network policy changes and platform upgrade impacts on NF workloads.

• Partner with security teams on infrastructure hardening: patch compliance RBAC policies network segmentation container image scanning and runtime security monitoring across public and private cloud.

• Surface toil and automation opportunities to the Service Assurance & Automation team document the procedure frequency and MTTR cost as structured input to the automation backlog.

• Mentor Senior NREs in Cloud Infra domain depth: Kubernetes troubleshooting patterns storage operations database reliability observability pipeline internals and escalation judgment.

GitOps IaC & Platform Engineering Interface

• Own operational oversight of GitOps tooling in production: ArgoCD sync health Helm chart version management drift detection and rollback execution for multi-cluster deployments.

• Review and validate Infrastructure as Code (Terraform Ansible) changes that impact production ensure operational impact is assessed and observability is in place before merge.

• Engage Skylos Platform Engineering and NI teams with full operational context when issues exceed operational resolution authority deliver a structured problem statement infrastructure telemetry bundle and a clear question rather than a vague escalation.

QUALIFICATIONS

Required

• 810 years of infrastructure engineering Site Reliability Engineering or cloud operations in a production 247 environment with direct on-call ownership for Kubernetes-at-scale environments.

• Deep Kubernetes expertise: multi-cluster operations (GKE or EKS) node pool management RBAC network policies persistent storage (PVC CSI drivers) CRD/operator patterns and production cluster upgrade procedures.

• Hybrid cloud operations: hands-on experience operating both public cloud (GCP or AWS) and on-premise/private cloud infrastructure (bare-metal Kubernetes KVM or hyperconverged platforms).

• Production observability stack ownership: Prometheus (federation remote write WAL management) Grafana VictoriaMetrics OpenTelemetry and alerting pipeline design with Pub/Sub or equivalent.

• Database reliability: PostgreSQL streaming replication backup/restore failover procedures and performance tuning; Redis cluster operations and persistence management.

• GitOps tooling in production: ArgoCD or Flux CD for multi-cluster operations; Helm chart authorship and version management; Terraform or Ansible for infrastructure provisioning.

• SRE fundamentals: SLO/SLI/SLA definition error budget management toil measurement capacity planning and on-call rotation design.

• Container and Linux internals: container runtime debugging kernel-level performance analysis storage subsystem troubleshooting and network packet flow understanding.

• Runbook authorship: ability to write infrastructure diagnostic procedures at the level where a less-experienced engineer can execute them independently under incident pressure.

• Strong written and verbal communication: capable of delivering RCA documents engineering escalations with structured problem statements and MNO-facing infrastructure summaries.

Preferred

• Experience operating cloud infrastructure for telecom or NTN workloads: 5G Core NF hosting vRAN compute requirements or satellite ground segment infrastructure.

• Software-defined storage expertise: Ceph Rook or equivalent distributed storage systems at production scale.

• Private cloud platform experience: KubeVirt Harvester or OpenStack for VM-container convergence on bare-metal infrastructure.

• Networking depth: BGP routing VXLAN overlays EVPN fabrics software-defined networking and hardware load balancer operations.

• Strong development background in Go or Python for building custom automation tooling Kubernetes operators or infrastructure lifecycle integrations.

• FinOps experience: cloud cost optimization resource lifecycle automation and capacity right-sizing across public cloud footprints.

• Certifications: CKA CKS AWS Solutions Architect Professional or Red Hat Certified Architect.

What We Offer

With employees working across three continents Skylo is proud to be an equal opportunity employer dedicated to building an inclusive and diverse workforce. Our worldwide and inclusive culture encourages a flexible approach to work and we also offer an attractive range benefits such as:

• Competitive compensation packages including a stock option based equity program

• Comprehensive benefits plans

• Monthly allowances for wellness and education reimbursement

• A generous time off policy holidays and the opportunity to temporarily work abroad

• Once in a lifetime opportunity to be a part of developing and running worlds first commercial live direct-to-device satellite network and service

• Access to world-class team and talent across tech domains: software hardware chipsets telecom satellite and network virtualization

• Open transparent inclusive culture that blends the Silicon Valley Nordic and South Asia characteristics

EEO Statement

Skylo is an equal-opportunity employer and we celebrate diversity. We do not discriminate on the basis of race religion color ancestry national origin caste sex sexual orientation parent or caregiver status political affiliation gender gender identity or expression age disability medical condition pregnancy genetic makeup marital status or military service consistent with applicable federal state and local laws.

We are also committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans in our job application procedures. Please let us know if you need assistance or accommodation due to a disability.

Required Experience:

Staff IC