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Chess.com
Cloud Engineer
Edtech.com's Summary
Chess.com is hiring a Cloud Engineer. The role combines site reliability engineering with cloud infrastructure management to scale the platform behind millions of daily chess games for players worldwide. The engineer works across a multi-regional distributed architecture, tuning performance and reliability while enabling rapid feature development and deployment.
Highlights
- Architect and optimize cloud-native infrastructure with Kubernetes, Terraform, and GitOps tools to support millions of concurrent chess games across global regions.
- Run and evolve the private Rancher-managed Kubernetes cloud on bare metal in Chess.com’s own datacenters, operating it alongside GKE regions as one platform with workloads placed for the best cost and performance.
- Analyze Golang and TypeScript codebases to find and resolve performance bottlenecks at scale, including chess-programming optimizations.
- Design resilient multi-regional systems that handle extreme scale, including managing more than 1 million CPUs across dozens of regions.
- Serve as the primary technical resource for critical infrastructure incidents, driving rapid resolution and minimal downtime.
- Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines using GitOps tools like ArgoCD, and manage all cloud resources as Infrastructure as Code with Terraform.
- Strengthen observability with monitoring stacks including Prometheus, Mimir, Elasticsearch, Vector, and Tempo.
- Bring 7+ years managing large-scale, cloud-native distributed systems in high-traffic production, with expert Kubernetes, advanced Terraform, strong Golang, and deep Linux administration skills.
- Show extensive experience with GCP and AWS, plus a strong grasp of distributed systems design, failure modes, and data modeling.
- Preferred experience includes chess programming and bit-level optimization, service mesh in hybrid multi-cloud and bare-metal environments, and message brokers such as Kafka, PubSub, and Redis.
Cloud Engineer Full Description
About The Role
The Cloud Engineer role is critical to scaling Chess.com's infrastructure to support millions of daily chess games and serve global users. This position combines site reliability engineering expertise with cloud infrastructure management, directly impacting system performance, reliability, and scalability across Chess.com's multi-regional distributed architecture. The role requires deep technical expertise in both infrastructure automation and application optimization to maintain Chess.com's position as a high-traffic gaming platform while enabling rapid feature development and deployment.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities
- Architect and optimize cloud-native infrastructure using Kubernetes, Terraform, and GitOps tools to support millions of concurrent chess games across multiple global regions
- Lead performance optimization initiatives by analyzing Golang and TypeScript codebases to identify and resolve bottlenecks at scale, with specific focus on chess programming optimizations
- Design and implement multi-regional resilient systems capable of handling extreme scale challenges including managing 1 million+ CPUs across dozens of regions
- Run and evolve our private Kubernetes cloud on bare-metal: a Rancher-managed fleet in our own datacenters that carries compute and IO intensive workloads, operated as one platform with GKE regions, with workloads placed wherever they get the best cost and performance.
- Execute incident response and operational excellence serving as primary technical resource for critical infrastructure issues, ensuring rapid resolution and minimal downtime
- Develop high-performance integration patterns for distributed systems handling extensive data volumes while maintaining reliability and scalability targets
- Collaborate with development teams to implement cloud service integration best practices and optimize application deployment architectures
- Implement Infrastructure as Code practices using Terraform to manage all cloud resources, ensuring consistent, automated, and scalable deployment processes
- Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines with GitOps approaches using tools like ArgoCD to enable rapid, reliable software delivery
- Monitor and enhance system observability through implementation of modern monitoring stacks including Prometheus, Mimir, ES, Vector and Tempo
Qualifications
- 7+ years of experience managing large-scale, cloud-native distributed systems with proven ability to handle high-traffic production environments
- Expert-level proficiency with Kubernetes including cluster deployment, management, and advanced orchestration patterns
- Advanced Infrastructure as Code experience with Terraform for managing complex cloud and Kubernetes resources in production
- Strong programming skills in Golang with demonstrated ability to optimize high-performance services and troubleshoot complex codebases
- Deep understanding of distributed systems design including failure modes, architectural principles, and data modeling strategies
- Extensive experience with major cloud platforms (GCP, AWS) including advanced services, networking, and cost optimization
- Proficiency with GitOps and CI/CD methodologies using modern deployment automation and continuous integration practices
- Hands-on experience with observability tools including metrics, logging, and distributed tracing systems for high-scale environments
- Strong Linux systems administration skills with deep knowledge of system internals and performance optimization
- Excellent collaboration and communication skills for working effectively in globally distributed teams
Preferred Skills and Qualifications
- Chess programming and optimization experience including bit-level manipulations and performance tuning for gaming applications
- TypeScript development experience for full-stack infrastructure and tooling development
- Service mesh implementation experience particularly in hybrid multi-cloud and bare-metal environments
- Message broker expertise with systems like Kafka, PubSub, and Redis for event-driven architectures
- Gaming industry experience with understanding of real-time systems and high-concurrency requirements
- Experience with Google Cloud partnerships and direct collaboration with cloud provider engineering teams
- C/C++ programming experience for low-level system optimizations
- Advanced networking knowledge for multi-regional infrastructure and hybrid cloud connectivity
- Experience managing bare-metal infrastructure and integrating with cloud-native services
- Database performance optimization experience with large-scale data systems and indexing strategies
About the Opportunity
- This is a full-time opportunity
- We are 100% remote (work from anywhere!)
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