Senior Systems Engineer

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Senior Systems Engineer based in Canada.
This role offers the opportunity to engineer and operate large-scale global infrastructure supporting billions of page views and a vast international user base. You will work across availability, performance, security, automation, and reliability within a vertically integrated systems environment. The position combines deep technical ownership with hands-on problem solving across web infrastructure and lower-level systems. You will help optimize critical services, respond to failures, strengthen security, and remove operational friction for software development teams. Working within a small, highly skilled team, you will have visibility across a broad infrastructure stack and significant autonomy in solving complex problems. The role also offers opportunities to collaborate with distributed teammates and contribute to infrastructure practices at global scale.
Accountabilities
Maximize service availability and uptime through proactive capacity planning, sound architectural decisions, automation, monitoring, and rapid incident response.
Design, build, operate, and maintain large-scale web infrastructure with a strong focus on reliability and operational excellence.
Manage and optimize Nginx environments, including advanced routing configurations, load balancing, performance, and high availability.
Operate and maintain large MySQL and MariaDB deployments while protecting performance, uptime, and data integrity.
Run, troubleshoot, and optimize PHP applications operating at significant scale.
Investigate and improve interactions between application services and lower-level systems, including filesystems, networking, memory management, and kernel behavior.
Optimize server-side and client-side performance to improve the experience of users across global services.
Work with third-party services and infrastructure components when required to improve reliability, performance, and service delivery.
Maintain strong security practices through proactive monitoring, enforcement, real-time incident response, and robust data integrity and backup strategies.
Develop disaster recovery capabilities and ensure systems can be restored effectively when critical failures occur.
Remove operational friction for developers by providing infrastructure expertise, rapid technical guidance, and effective solutions to hosting and deployment challenges.
Independently architect, prototype, implement, and maintain solutions for complex infrastructure and hosting requirements.
Collaborate with distributed engineering teams and participate in periodic in-person team gatherings, including approximately 2–3 weeks of travel per year.
Requirements
Significant professional experience managing large-scale, public-facing web infrastructure and complex hosting environments.
Deep hands-on experience with Nginx, including advanced routing, load balancing, high availability, and performance optimization.
Strong experience operating large MySQL or MariaDB deployments with a focus on reliability, performance, and data integrity.
Proven experience running and debugging PHP applications at scale.
Strong understanding of lower-level systems and their relationship to web services, including filesystems, networking, memory management, and kernel internals.
Experience with complex public-facing infrastructure where availability, performance, security, and operational resilience are critical.
Ability to independently design, prototype, troubleshoot, and maintain infrastructure solutions with limited supervision.
Strong analytical and troubleshooting skills, with the ability to investigate complex technical issues and identify practical solutions.
Exceptional attention to detail and a strong commitment to operational excellence.
Ability to work effectively as part of a small, highly integrated engineering team while taking ownership of individual technical areas.
Strong communication and collaboration skills within a distributed, asynchronous environment.
Willingness to travel approximately 2–3 weeks per year for in-person collaboration with teammates.
Benefits
Salary range of $120,000–$180,000+ USD annually.
Global salary structure, with compensation paid in local currency.
Potential for compensation beyond the stated range based on the contribution and impact expected from the successful candidate.
Straightforward, competitive base salary without complex variable compensation.
Fully remote work environment.
Open vacation policy with no fixed number of vacation days per year.
Country-specific benefits and programs based on local eligibility.
Opportunity to work on infrastructure supporting extremely large-scale global web traffic.
Periodic opportunities for in-person collaboration and international travel.
Exposure to complex systems engineering challenges across infrastructure, performance, reliability, and security.
How Jobgether Works
We use an AI-powered matching process to ensure your application is reviewed quickly, objectively, and fairly against the role's core requirements. Our system identifies the top-fitting candidates, and this shortlist is then shared directly with the hiring company. The final decision and next steps (interviews, assessments) are managed by their internal team.
We appreciate your interest and wish you the best!
Why Apply Through Jobgether?
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We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses and identifying potential inconsistencies or verification signals in application materials based on available information. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.

Work arrangement
Yes