Staff Software Engineer, DevOps

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Rivian

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Palo Alto, CA, United States

About Us:
Rivian is on a mission to keep the world adventurous forever. This goes for the emissions-free Electric Adventure Vehicles we build, and the curious, courageous souls we seek to attract.

As a company, we constantly challenge what’s possible, never simply accepting what has always been done. We reframe old problems, seek new solutions and operate comfortably in areas that are unknown. Our backgrounds are diverse, but our team shares a love of the outdoors and a desire to protect it for future generations.
Role Summary:

Are you a humble, empathetic, and service-minded staff/lead-level Platform Developer Experience Engineer with working experience in GitLab CI, ArgoCD, and Backstage? We want you to join our band of customer-success-focused, like-minded merry folk. In this role, you will have the opportunity to design, implement, and maintain our internal developer platform (IDP), playing a key role in streamlining our software development lifecycle. Your expertise in GitLab CI, ArgoCD, container images, Kubernetes, and Backstage, along with your passion for customer success, will be instrumental in serving our development teams and enabling their work to flow smoothly from local to production as they rapidly iterate on products.

Responsibilities:

  • CI/CD Pipeline Development

    • Design and build robust and scalable CI/CD pipelines for various projects utilizing GitLab CI.

    • Integrate GitLab CI with version control (Git), testing frameworks, and deployment platforms.

    • Implement automated build, test, and deployment processes.

    • Optimize pipeline performance for faster and more reliable builds and deployments.

    • Leverage containerization (Docker) to package and deploy applications consistently across environments.

  • GitOps Implementation

    • Implement and manage application deployments using ArgoCD for declarative and GitOps-based deployments.

    • Ensure synchronization between Git repositories and Kubernetes clusters.

    • Monitor and manage application rollouts and rollbacks using ArgoCD.

  • GitLab Administration

    • Manage and maintain the GitLab instance, including user management, access control, and system configuration.

    • Monitor GitLab performance and troubleshoot issues.

    • Implement and enforce best practices for GitLab usage.

  • Production Readiness Process

    • Define and implement a robust automated production readiness process to ensure applications meet quality, observability, compliance, security, alerting, and reliability standards before deployment.

    • Automate the above production readiness checks within the CI/CD pipeline to ensure apps and services remain compliant.

  • Augment our Internal Development Portal—Backstage

    • Create and maintain “golden path” components to standardize app and service scaffolding.

    • Contribute to the integrations of our platform into the portal to improve self-service and discovery.

  • Collaboration and Support

    • Collaborate with development teams to identify and address pipeline needs and bottlenecks.

    • Provide technical guidance and support to development teams on CI/CD best practices, GitLab CI usage, and ArgoCD deployments.

    • Stay up-to-date on CI/CD industry trends and new tools, particularly within the GitLab, ArgoCD, and Backstage ecosystems.

Qualifications:

  • Strong CI/CD Expertise: Proven experience building and managing CI/CD pipelines, specifically using GitLab CI.

  • GitLab Administration: Experience in managing and administering GitLab instances.

  • GitOps Experience: Hands-on experience with ArgoCD or similar GitOps tools for Kubernetes deployments.

  • Kubernetes Experience: Hands-on experience with Kubernetes for container orchestration and application deployment.

  • Application Development Experience: Hands-on experience contributing to the development of APIs and UIs—you don’t have to be an expert.
  • The kit we use—you should be comfortable using a lot of tools in this kit: GitLab CI, Crossplane, k8s, ArgoCD, React, Typescript, NodeJS, Go, Backstage, Helm, Terraform, Kubecost, AWS.
Pay Disclosure:
Salary Range for California Based Applicants: $171,000 - $232,000 (actual compensation will be determined based on experience, location, and other factors permitted by law).

Salary Range for British Columbia Based Applicants: $137,300 - $171,600 CAD (actual compensation will be determined based on experience, location, and other factors permitted by law).

Benefits Summary: Rivian provides robust medical/Rx, dental and vision insurance packages for full-time and part-time employees, their spouse or domestic partner, and children up to age 26. Full Time Employee coverage is effective on the first day of employment. Part-Time employee coverage is effective the first of the month following 90 days of employment.
Company Statements:

Equal Opportunity

Rivian is an equal opportunity employer and complies with all applicable federal, state, and local fair employment practices laws. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender expression, gender identity, genetic information or characteristics, physical or mental disability, marital/domestic partner status, age, military/veteran status, medical condition, or any other characteristic protected by law.

Rivian is committed to ensuring that our hiring process is accessible for persons with disabilities. If you have a disability or limitation, such as those covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act, that requires accommodations to assist you in the search and application process, please email us at candidateaccommodations@rivian.com.

Candidate Data Privacy

Rivian may collect, use and disclose your personal information or personal data (within the meaning of the applicable data protection laws) when you apply for employment and/or participate in our recruitment processes (“Candidate Personal Data”). This data includes contact, demographic, communications, educational, professional, employment, social media/website, network/device, recruiting system usage/interaction, security and preference information. Rivian may use your Candidate Personal Data for the purposes of (i) tracking interactions with our recruiting system; (ii) carrying out, analyzing and improving our application and recruitment process, including assessing you and your application and conducting employment, background and reference checks; (iii) establishing an employment relationship or entering into an employment contract with you; (iv) complying with our legal, regulatory and corporate governance obligations; (v) recordkeeping; (vi) ensuring network and information security and preventing fraud; and (vii) as otherwise required or permitted by applicable law.

Rivian may share your Candidate Personal Data with (i) internal personnel who have a need to know such information in order to perform their duties, including individuals on our People Team, Finance, Legal, and the team(s) with the position(s) for which you are applying; (ii) Rivian affiliates; and (iii) Rivian’s service providers, including providers of background checks, staffing services, and cloud services.

Rivian may transfer or store internationally your Candidate Personal Data, including to or in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the European Union and in the cloud, and this data may be subject to the laws and accessible to the courts, law enforcement and national security authorities of such jurisdictions.

Please note that we are currently not accepting applications from third party application services.