DevOps Engineer

ABOUT VAMOSWATU
( ---------- )

VamosWatu is a talent partner for US-based Seed and Series A startups. We help founders build lean, high-performing in-house tech teams by owning the entire talent function: sourcing, vetting, payroll, compliance, and office operations. We do not flood inboxes with CVs. We find the RIGHT engineers, vet them for skill and culture fit, and embed them directly into our customers' organizations.

Everyone we place works full-time, is integrated with the customer, and is supported by VamosWatu's startup ecosystem, including HR, infrastructure, and community. You are not a freelancer. You are a core tea ---------- mber.


ABOUT THE CUSTOMER
Our customer is a US-headquartered Seed startup investing in its infrastructure layer. They are building a product that requires reliable, scalable, and secure systems from day one.

This is a selective process; we are identifying engineers who should be part of the founding technical team.


ROLE SUMMARY
We are looking for a Senior DevOps Engineer who will own the infrastructure, deployment pipelines, and operational reliability of the platform. You will build and maintain the systems that allow engineers to ship fast and customers to rely on the product.

This is a senior level role where you will have significant ownership over cloud infrastructure, CI/CD, observability, and security compliance. Candidates with strong data security and compliance backgrounds are highly preferred.


WHAT YOU'LL DO
-Design, build, and maintain cloud infrastructure on GCP
-Implement and optimize CI/CD pipelines for fast, reliable deployments
-Set up and maintain containerization (Docker) and orchestration (Kubernetes)
-Build observability infrastructure: logging, metrics, tracing, and alerting
-Implement infrastructure-as-code using Terraform, Pulumi, or similar tools
-Ensure security best practices across infrastructure and deployments
-Support SOC II compliance efforts and work with compliance automation platforms
-Support GDPR and data privacy compliance across infrastructure, including data residency and encryption requirements
-Manage database operations, backups, and disaster recovery
-Optimize for cost, performance, and reliability
-Support developers with tooling, debugging, and environment setup
-Participate in on-call rotations and i ---------- response

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR
Required:
-7+ years of experience in DevOps, SRE, or infrastructure engineering
-Strong experience with Google Cloud Platform (GCP) preferred, or AWS/Azure
-Proficiency with containerization (Docker) and orchestration (Kubernetes)
-Experience building and maintaining CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins, or similar)
-Familiarity with infrastructure-as-code tools (Terraform, Pulumi, CloudFormation)
-Experience with monitoring and observability tools (Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog, or similar)
-Strong scripting skills (Bash, Python, or Go)
-Understanding of networking, security, and Linux systems
-Experience with data security, compliance, or regulated environments

Valuable:
-Experience with SOC II audit processes (HUGE advantage)
-Experience with Vanta or similar compliance automation platforms (EVEN BIGGER advantage)
-Experience with GDPR compliance requirements and data residency
-Experience with GitOps workflows (ArgoCD, FluxCD)
-Background in managing databases at scale (PostgreSQL, Redis, graph databases)
-Familiarity with service mesh technologies (Istio, Linkerd)
-Experience supporting AI/ML infrastructure and workloads
-Previous experience in a startup environment

WHO THRIVES HERE
You believe infrastructure should be invisible to developers: fast, reliable, and self-service. You automate everything you can and document what you cannot. You think about failure modes before they happen. You care about cost as much as performance. You understand that security and compliance are not afterthoughts. You want to build infrastructure that scales with the company.


COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS
This is a full-time independent contractor engagement, administratively managed by VamosWatu. All Customer Benefits are passed through VamosWatu to you in full. VamosWatu takes no cut.

VamosWatu Ecosystem Benefits:
-15 days of paid time off (PTO) per year
-5 days of paid sick leave per year
-Hallmark holidays off
-0% interest business loans for hardware purchases
-$1,000 per year professional development stipend
-$500 newly married stipend
-$500 new child stipend
-$500 compassionate support for loss of a spouse, child, parent, or sibling
-Cash bonuses for above-and-beyond performance
-Ecosystem-wide recognition for above-and-beyond performance

Customer Benefits:
-Cash bonuses for above-and-beyond performance
-Potential for early-tea ---------- mber equity and shares in the startup

All Customer Benefits are passed through VamosWatu to you in full. VamosWatu takes no cut.



HOW WE WORK
-Your working hours are 09:00 to 18:00 Eastern African Time, Monday through Friday.
-You are expected to work on a compliant device: a MacBook Pro M4 Pro or M5, 24 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD, or a Lenovo X1 Carbon, 32 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD or equivalent.

WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE
-At 90 days: CI/CD pipelines are fast and reliable. Infrastructure is documented and reproducible with IaC. Monitoring and alerting are in place. Developers can deploy with confidence.

-At 1 year: Infrastructure scales with the product. Security and compliance posture supports SOC II certification. I ---------- response is mature. Developer experience is self-service and frictionless.


HIRING PROCESS
1. Submit your application
2. AI interview and coding exercise
3. Live interview with the VamosWatu team
4. Finalists will have a final interview with the customer team

We aim to move quickly and respect your time. Expect to hear from us within 5 business days of applying.

INCLUSION STATEMENT
We believe the best teams are built from diverse backgrounds and perspectives. We hire for curiosity, craft, and the drive to build, not pedigree. If this role sounds like the opportunity you have been waiting for, we want to hear from you.