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Chess.com

Senior SRE - Distributed Systems & Cloud Infrastructure

🇺🇸 Remote - US

🕑 Full-Time

💰 TBD

💻 Information Technology

🗓️ October 13th, 2025

Golang Kubernetes Terraform

Edtech.com's Summary

Chess.com is hiring a Senior SRE - Distributed Systems & Cloud Infrastructure to lead the design and optimization of cloud-native services, enhance infrastructure performance, and ensure reliable operation at scale. The role involves deep performance tuning of Golang and TypeScript codebases, collaborating with development teams, and driving incident response and operational excellence in a global, distributed environment.

Highlights
  • Lead design and optimization of Kubernetes, Terraform, and GitOps-based cloud infrastructure.
  • Develop and manage scalable distributed systems handling large volumes of data.
  • Perform deep performance tuning of Golang and TypeScript applications.
  • Collaborate with development teams to refine cloud architecture and enhance system reliability.
  • Participate in incident response to minimize downtime and improve operational efficiency.
  • Manage infrastructure automation and deployment using Terraform and Kubernetes.
  • Require 5+ years’ experience in managing large-scale cloud-native distributed systems.
  • Expertise in Kubernetes, Terraform, GitOps, and observability practices.
  • Strong skills in Golang development, profiling, and optimization.
  • Preferred experience with chess programming, C/C++, and modern observability tools.

Senior SRE - Distributed Systems & Cloud Infrastructure Full Description

Senior SRE - Distributed Systems & Cloud Infrastructure

About Us
Chess.com is one of the largest gaming sites in the world and the #1 platform for playing, learning, and enjoying chess.

We are a team of 600+ fully remote people in 60+ countries working hard to serve the global chess community. We are here to support 200M+ chess players worldwide with the best possible product, content, and tools to serve the community!

We are a tech company. A gaming company. A content company. And we do it all with passion and commitment to the game. Above all we prize our mission-driven, flat, life-celebrating, no-corporate culture, and we look forward to meeting you and learning more about what you can bring to the team.

About You
  • You’re a passionate member of the Chess.com community, with an acute understanding of our users and their needs.
  • You have advanced expertise in distributed systems and several years of experience integrating and optimizing cloud-native services using Kubernetes, Golang, and TypeScript at scale.
  • You excel at deep-diving into both application code and core system internals to optimize performance and architect robust solutions.
  • You thrive in globally distributed teams, are humble, humorous, and take strong ownership of your work.
  • You’re enthusiastic about tackling the complexities of high-traffic, data-intensive environments and are eager to push the limits of infrastructure reliability and scalability for Chess.

What you'll do

Architect & Optimize Infrastructure:
  • Lead the design and optimization of cloud-native services using Kubernetes, Terraform, and GitOps tools like ArgoCD.
  • Develop high-performance integration patterns and manage scalable, distributed systems handling extensive data volumes.

Deep Performance Tuning:
  • Dive into Golang and TypeScript codebases to identify and resolve performance bottlenecks at scale.
  • Optimize infrastructure and application code to achieve aggressive performance and reliability targets, with a focus on chess programming at the bits level.

Collaboration & Best Practices:
  • Work closely with development teams to refine cloud service integration architectures and implement best practices.
  • Monitor and enhance system reliability and performance through effective collaboration and innovative solutions.

Incident Response & Operational Excellence:
  • Participate in incident response for critical infrastructure issues, ensuring rapid resolution and minimal downtime.
  • Drive improvements in infrastructure reliability, scalability, and operational efficiency.

Infrastructure & Automation:
  • Utilize Terraform and Kubernetes to manage and scale our cloud infrastructure, ensuring robust, automated deployment processes.

Required Skills

High-Scale Cloud Operations:
  • 5+ years of experience managing and scaling large-scale, cloud-native distributed systems.
  • Deep understanding of Kubernetes, Terraform, and GitOps practices.
  • Expert in observability practices and ability to support incident response / on call.

Advanced Development in Golang:
  • Extensive experience in high-performance service development with Golang
  • Proven ability to profile and optimize applications for high throughput and reliable operation.

Distributed Systems Expertise:
  • Strong knowledge of distributed systems design, failure modes, and robust architectural principles.
  • Experience with data modeling and indexing strategies to support efficient service operations.

Performance Optimization:
  • Demonstrated experience improving system reliability and performance through deep code-level and architectural analysis.

Communication & Collaboration:
  • Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
  • Experience working in globally distributed teams.

Preferred Skills

Chess Programming:
  • Experience in chess programming, including bit-level manipulations and optimizations.
  • C/C++ Experience

Observability & Cloud Practices:
  • Familiarity with modern observability tools and practices.
  • Hands-on experience with Kubernetes and cloud-native workflows.

About the Opportunity
  • This is a full-time opportunity
  • We are 100% remote (work from anywhere!)

You can learn more about us here: