Site Reliability Engineer Lead

Our client is building a new Site Reliability Engineering function and seeking a leader who can establish SRE practices across the organization while developing a team of engineers new to the discipline. This is a unique opportunity to shape how reliability engineering from the ground up.

The SRE team operates as a guiding and consultative partner to application and development teams rather than owning systems directly. Success in this role requires technical credibility, strong influencing skills, and the ability to drive change through collaboration and education rather than direct authority. This role is accountable for building and leading the SRE team, including hiring, performance management, coaching, and development of engineers transitioning into SRE practices. The manager establishes the SRE operating model (how SRE engages with application and development teams), ensures sustainable on-call and learning culture, and drives adoption of reliability standards through collaboration and influence.

How you'll make an impact:

• Shape how Reliability Engineering is practiced and enforced across the Bank through collaboration
• Build deep relationships between IT and the greater organization in support of common goals
• Provide direction and development guidance to a team of 3-4 members in this new space
• Deepen further automation into application availability and reporting processes

What you can expect:

Team Leadership and Development:

• Build and develop a team of engineers transitioning from traditional operations and systems administration backgrounds into SRE practices
• Create psychological safety that enables learning, experimentation, and honest discussion of failures
• Establish career development paths and growth opportunities within the SRE discipline
• Foster a culture of blameless postmortems and continuous improvement

Reliability Engineering Practice:

• Define and implement Service Level Indicators (SLIs), Service Level Objectives (SLOs), and error budget policies across critical services
• Establish pager budgets and on-call practices that are sustainable and effective
• Lead tuning and optimization of monitoring, alerting, and observability tooling
• Drive reduction of system disruptions through automation, tooling, and process improvement
• Develop and maintain incident management processes, including severity classification and escalation procedures
• Participate in Disaster Recovery process and testing, coordinating and executing regularly scheduled DR exercises

Consultation and Partnership:

• Participate in troubleshooting meetings and production incidents, providing expert guidance and recommendations
• Partner with application owners, product owners, and development teams to improve system reliability
• Ensure deep technical analysis is performed for significant reliability issues, and provide escalation support as needed; coach the team in translating findings into actionable recommendations.
• Advocate for reliability investments and help teams prioritize reliability work against feature development
• Build relationships that enable SRE to influence architectural and operational decisions without direct ownership

Organizational Leadership:

• Secure and maintain executive sponsorship and governance mechanisms required for SLO and error budget practices (including defined decision rights when reliability thresholds are breached).
• Communicate the value and principles of SRE to leadership, helping secure sustained support and appropriate resource allocation
• Develop metrics and reporting that demonstrate SRE impact on business outcomes
• Navigate organizational dynamics to build credibility and trust for a new function
• Align SRE practices with existing compliance, risk management, and regulatory requirements

What you'll bring:

• 2 years of Site Reliability Engineering or directly-related primary function
• 5 years of experience in infrastructure, operations, DevOps
• 2 years of people management experience, with demonstrated ability to develop and grow technical talent
• Strong technical foundation in systems administration, networking, and infrastructure
• Proficiency in at least one programming or scripting language (.NET preferred, Python also valuable)
• Experience with monitoring, observability, and alerting tools and practices
• Proficiency with agentic AI tools such as Github Copilot, Claude Code, or Codex
• Demonstrated ability to influence outcomes without direct authority
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including ability to explain technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders
• Experience conducting or leading incident response and postmortem processes
• Outstanding communication (verbal, written, and listening) skills
• Proven ability to consistently navigate crucial conversations
• Critical thinking - using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions or approaches to problems
• Systems thinking approaching situations and scenarios understanding they are a complex web of interdependencies between items and other systems that are often initially unclear
• Ability to present ideas in business-friendly and user-friendly language
• Attention to detail
• Comfort with high levels of ambiguity and shared responsibility
• Pleasant demeanor with others with a good-natured, cooperative attitude
• Experience with Agile methods and concepts
• Knowledge of cloud computing principles, specifically related to Amazon Web Services

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience implementing SRE practices in an organization new to the discipline
• Background in financial services or other regulated industries
• Experience defining and implementing SLIs, SLOs, and error budget policies
• Experience building or transforming teams through organizational change
• Knowledge of ITIL, DevOps, or related frameworks

Salary: $170,000 - $210,000 (based on experience) benefits.

About The Company

Peterson Technology Partners (PTP) is an Equal Opportunity Employer committed to creating a transparent, inclusive, and human-centered hiring experience.

For more than 28 years, PTP has operated as one of the top IT staffing and recruiting firms in the USA built on trust, long-term partnerships, and technical excellence.

Based in the Chicago suburb of Park Ridge, IL, our team of more than 500 employees and consultants is dedicated to:

Helping every client make the best hiring decisions possible

Matching professionals with the right IT jobs and career opportunities

As part of that commitment, we believe in providing clear information about how our hiring technologies work and how your data is used. The following section outlines our AI-assisted interview process and your rights as a candidate.

AI-Assisted Interview Experience (Pete & Gabi Rebecca)

To provide a consistent, fair, and flexible experience for all candidates, we use AI-assisted tools to support parts of the interview process. This includes our proprietary AI platform Pete & Gabi, which includes AI recruiter Rebecca.

These AI hiring tools help us:

• Conduct recorded video interviews
• Transcribe interviews
• Summarize candidate responses
• Generate job-related insights
• Streamline communication and scheduling

Please note that:

The AI does NOT make hiring decisions; all decisions are made by our human recruiters, hiring managers, or client partners.

The AI does not evaluate facial expressions, emotions, or physical traits; it is used only to support fairness, consistency, and efficiency.

If you prefer a non-AI interview format, we will gladly provide an alternative.

Technical or Case Interviews (Role-Dependent):

When applying for certain tech jobs, you may participate in:

• A technical interview
• A coding challenge
• A case study
• A client-specific assessment

We will always explain what to expect in advance so you can prepare with confidence.

Human Review & Selection:

Every candidate's profile including interviews, conversations, and assessments is reviewed by experienced recruiters and hiring leaders.

AI insights may assist with organization and evaluation, but final decisions are always human-driven.

Your Rights as a Candidate:

At PTP, every candidate has the right to:

Request a non-AI interview path

Ask how your data is being used

Request access to transcripts or interview recordings

Request deletion of your AI-recorded interview

Receive clear, timely communication

Our goal is to ensure you feel respected, informed, and supported throughout your experience.

Our Commitment:

For more than 28 years, PTP has focused on putting people first candidates, consultants, employees, and clients.

We're committed to a hiring process that is:

• Transparent
• Compliant
• Equitable
• Powered by innovative technology that enhances not replaces human judgment

Welcome to the future of hiring at Peterson Technology Partners.

We're excited to learn more about you.

Equal Employment Opportunity:

Peterson Technology Partners is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic.

Salary : $170,000 - $200,000