SRE - Observability

About the Role

At Focused, we move quickly to deliver quality software that achieves client outcomes and meets their customer’s needs. We strategically partner with our clients to leverage our expertise in design and software, while our clients bring their own domain expertise. We work with a variety of clients from different industries, collaborating as we get new products to market, modernizing legacy systems, or helping teams learn the skills they need to be successful.

Key Responsibilities

• Design and implement end-to-end OpenTelemetry solutions across diverse technology stacks
• Configure and deploy OpenTelemetry Collectors for efficient data collection, processing, sampling, and routing
• Establish telemetry pipelines for metrics, traces, and logs across microservices architectures
• Optimize collector configurations for performance, reliability, and cost-effectiveness
• Augment existing infrastructure with integrated observability solutions
• Implement Infrastructure as Code (IaC) solutions using Terraform, Pulumi, CloudFormation, etc.
• Architect and manage Kubernetes clusters with comprehensive monitoring and logging
• Build CI/CD pipelines with embedded observability and automated testing
• Establish and maintain Service Level Indicators (SLIs), Objectives (SLOs), and Agreements (SLAs)
• Implement error budgets, toil reduction strategies, and capacity planning
• Support incident response procedures and post-mortem processes
• Deploy and manage observability infrastructure across AWS, GCP, and Azure
• Establish security, compliance, and governance frameworks for telemetry data
• Experience automating Agent Evaluations in CI/CD pipelines and observability backends.

Required Qualifications

Core Observability & OpenTelemetry
3-5 years of experience in observability, monitoring, and distributed systems
Deep hands-on experience with OpenTelemetry ecosystem, including SDKs, APIs, and specifications
Proficiency with OpenTelemetry Collector configuration, processors, exporters, and receivers
Strong understanding of telemetry data models, semantic conventions, and instrumentation best practices

Platform Engineering & DevOps
5+ years of Platform Engineering or DevOps experience with focus on site reliability, observability, and incident response
Proficiency with Infrastructure as Code tools (Terraform, Pulumi, CloudFormation, CDK)
Strong experience with CI/CD platforms (Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins, ArgoCD)

Cloud & Infrastructure
Hands-on experience with major cloud providers (AWS, GCP, Azure) and their observability services
Experience with container technologies (Docker, Podman) and container registries
Knowledge of networking, security, load balancing, and distributed systems concepts

Site Reliability Engineering
Experience implementing SRE practices including error budgets and toil metrics
Proficiency in incident management, on-call procedures, and post-mortem culture
Experience with capacity planning, performance optimization, and scalability design

Programming & Automation
Proficiency in multiple programming languages preferred (Go, Python, Java, Node.js, Rust)
Strong scripting and automation skills (Bash, Python, PowerShell)
Understanding of software engineering best practices and testing methodologies

Preferred Qualifications

AI & Agentic Frameworks
Understanding of Large Language Models (LLMs) and their application in DevOps
Knowledge of vector databases, embeddings, and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG)
Experience with AI/ML model deployment and monitoring in production environments

Leadership & Communication
Strong technical writing and documentation skills
Ability to present complex technical concepts to diverse stakeholders
A passion for knowledge sharing

Key Competencies

Systems thinking and ability to design holistic observability solutions
Strong analytical and troubleshooting skills for complex distributed systems
Curiosity about emerging technologies, particularly AI applications in operations
Adaptability to rapidly evolving cloud-native and observability technologies
Collaborative mindset with focus on enabling developer productivity and system reliability

What Sets Exceptional Candidates Apart

Experience with Honeycomb
Contributions to open-source observability or AI framework projects
Track record of implementing platform engineering solutions that significantly improved developer experience
Experience scaling observability infrastructure to handle high event volume

What to know before you apply

This role will require being in the Chicago office three days per week and up to 20% travel within the United States. Focused is unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of the employment Visa process at this time.