Senior DevOps & Infrastructure Lead

RV LIFE is looking for a Senior DevOps & Infrastructure Lead to help us stabilize document and modernize the infrastructure behind our products.

This is a hands-on senior role for someone comfortable inheriting real production systems reducing operational risk improving reliability and moving us toward a documented secure automated infrastructure-as-code operating model.

We run production across DigitalOcean AWS Cloudflare and other hosting providers and are consolidating onto managed infrastructure-as-code platforms. We need deep hands-on expertise across these environments.

RV LIFE is an AI-first engineering organization. We expect this person to use AI to accelerate discovery documentation runbooks log review scripting and infrastructure-as-code drafting while applying strict human judgment around security secrets production access destructive commands rollback and correctness.

This role focuses on the infrastructure path to reliability; application-level architecture changes are handled in partnership with our engineering team. It is not just about keeping servers alive. It is about building durable practices that reduce single-person dependency improve visibility and make our systems safer to operate.

This is not a standard 9-to-5 role. Production issues do not keep business hours so it carries real on-call responsibility: you need to be reachable and able to respond when unforeseen incidents arise.

• Administer and improve existing DigitalOcean infrastructure.

• Support and improve Linux-based production server environments.

• Migrate self-managed databases onto managed database services with validated failover backups and recovery.

• Move applications onto managed runtimes (including Laravel Cloud where it fits) replacing manual deploy processes with automated repeatable pipelines.

• Expand and harden our use of Cloudflare for edge static hosting caching and security.

• Build a clear inventory of servers services databases domains access paths backups monitoring and operational risks.

• Create and maintain practical runbooks for common and emergency infrastructure workflows.

• Improve incident response escalation paths monitoring logging and alerting.

• Review and improve backup restore and disaster-recovery procedures.

• Identify recurring manual work and convert it into safer procedures scripts automation or infrastructure-as-code.

• Help define infrastructure-as-code standards and move appropriate infrastructure into repeatable version-controlled workflows.

• Work with AWS services where needed (Lambda VPC IAM CloudWatch S3 SSM/Secrets Manager queues).

• Use AI tools to accelerate discovery documentation scripting troubleshooting and automation with strong production-safety judgment.

• Partner with engineering leadership to prioritize infrastructure risk and modernization; track work clearly in Jira/GitHub and communicate proactively about risks tradeoffs and blockers.

In the first 30-60 days youll take ownership of how we see and operate our infrastructure building on what we already track and closing the gaps.

Youll validate and take ownership of what already exists:

• Our infrastructure inventory and server map

• Our monitoring and alerting

• Our DNS / Cloudflare configuration

• Our prioritized infrastructure risk register

Youll create what were missing:

• An access and credential map

• Verified backup and restore status for critical systems (tested not assumed)

• Runbooks for the highest-risk operational workflows

In the first 90 days youll move us toward a durable consolidated model. Success means:

• The first core database migrated to a managed service with a tested restore plus a clear sequenced plan for the rest.

• The first application running on a managed runtime (App Platform or Laravel Cloud).

• The first static frontend served from Cloudflare Pages.

• A measurably stronger edge security posture.

• Critical systems no longer understood by only one person; common tasks have documented procedures; manual processes are being converted to automation; AI is used safely to reduce toil.

• Senior-level experience operating production infrastructure.

• Deep hands-on Linux server administration (the traditional old-school kind): operating securing and troubleshooting manually managed production servers (LAMP/LEMP system services cron networking SSH) directly at the command line not only through a cloud console.

• Experience with DigitalOcean Linode AWS EC2 bare VPS hosting or comparable environments.

• Senior database operations: migrating self-managed MySQL to a managed service replication backup validation restore testing and IO isolation.

• Strong Cloudflare across DNS WAF CDN and caching behavior page rules Workers Pages and Zero Trust/Access including traffic routing and origin protection.

• PHP/Laravel application environments and experience with a managed Laravel runtime (Laravel Cloud and/or DigitalOcean App Platform).

• Datadog or a comparable observability platform for monitoring alerting dashboards logs and incident investigation.

• Infrastructure-as-code such as Terraform Pulumi AWS CDK Serverless Framework or CloudFormation.

• CI/CD pipelines and deployment automation.

• Practical AWS experience (Lambda IAM VPC CloudWatch S3 SSM/Secrets Manager queues).

• Good judgment around production safety access control secrets backups and incident response.

• Willingness to carry real on-call responsibility and respond to production incidents outside normal business hours; this is not a strict 9-to-5 role.

• A habit of documenting what you learn and creating runbooks others can follow.

• Practical experience using AI tools (ChatGPT Claude Cursor GitHub Copilot or similar) with strong judgment about where human verification is required.

• Ability to work independently in a small remote engineering organization where practical ownership matters more than bureaucracy.

• Experience migrating manually managed services onto managed platforms or IaC.

• Experience moving static frontends onto Cloudflare Pages.

• Managed migrations for MongoDB OpenSearch or Valkey/Redis.

• Experience supporting React and React Native alongside PHP.

• Experience helping organizations reduce infrastructure bus-factor risk.

• Experience working with external DevOps/security partners or auditors.

You are someone who:

• Takes ownership without waiting to be told every next step.

• Is calm and practical during incidents.

• Can inherit messy systems without being judgmental or reckless.

• Prefers consolidating on platforms we already run over adding new vendors.

• Documents as you go.

• Uses AI as leverage but does not blindly trust its output; you verify test and apply senior judgment before anything touches production.

• Knows when to automate and when to stabilize first.

• Communicates clearly with technical and non-technical stakeholders.

• Understands that reliability is not just uptime: it is visibility repeatability recovery and shared understanding.

• Wants to leave infrastructure better than you found it.