Staff Site Reliability Engineer (Security-Focused SRE)

Job Summary / Overview

Our client is seeking a highly skilled Contract Staff Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) with a strong focus on security to embed directly within product development teams. This role operates at the intersection of security engineering and site reliability, helping teams strengthen infrastructure, DevOps practices, and observability while ensuring alignment with centralized SRE standards.

The ideal candidate is a hands-on practitioner who can seamlessly collaborate with engineering teams, translate security policies into practical implementation, and drive secure, scalable, and reliable system design. This role requires strong communication skills, technical depth, and the ability to balance team-level priorities with broader organizational standards.

Key Responsibilities

Security (Primary Focus)

• Act as the embedded security advocate within development teams, translating centralized security policies into actionable practices
• Partner with security leadership to conduct vulnerability assessments, support penetration testing, and lead remediation efforts
• Implement and enforce secure-by-default practices across CI/CD pipelines, cloud infrastructure, and application environments
• Develop automated monitoring and alerting for security anomalies and integrate insights into observability platforms
• Support incident response and postmortem analysis with a focus on identifying and resolving security root causes
• Conduct regular reviews of infrastructure-as-code (IaC) and guide teams in remediation and secure coding practices

DevOps & Infrastructure

• Design, build, and maintain secure, scalable, and highly available cloud infrastructure
• Support development teams in implementing infrastructure-as-code with strong governance, versioning, and auditability
• Assist with Kubernetes and container orchestration, including security hardening and performance optimization
• Promote adoption of DevSecOps tools and practices aligned with organizational standards

Observability

• Enhance observability through improved metrics, logging, tracing, and alerting capabilities
• Ensure monitoring aligns with service-level objectives (SLOs) and organizational reliability frameworks
• Build dashboards and alerts that improve incident response times and operational visibility

Collaboration & Enablement

• Mentor engineers on secure system design, DevSecOps practices, and operational readiness
• Translate complex security and infrastructure concepts into clear, actionable guidance for development teams
• Collaborate closely with engineering leadership to prioritize and execute embedded work
• Uphold centralized SRE standards while effectively contributing to team-level goals

Required Qualifications

Core Competencies

• Strong, hands-on expertise in security engineering within cloud-native environments
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills with the ability to influence technical teams
• Proven ability to work cross-functionally while maintaining alignment with centralized standards
• Self-driven with strong problem-solving abilities and attention to detail
• Ability to simplify complex technical concepts for diverse engineering audiences

Technical Requirements

• Deep understanding of cloud security principles, including IAM, VPC design, encryption, and least-privilege access
• Strong experience with container security and Kubernetes security best practices (e.g., RBAC, network policies)
• Experience building and securing CI/CD pipelines, including automated security testing and scanning
• Proficiency in at least one scripting or programming language (e.g., Go, Python, Bash)
• Hands-on experience with system monitoring, incident response, and security-focused postmortem analysis

Experience & Credentials

• 7+ years of experience in Site Reliability Engineering, DevOps, or Platform Engineering with a strong security focus
• Demonstrated experience working in cloud-native and distributed systems environments

Preferred Qualifications

• Security certifications such as CISSP, CISM, OSCP, or Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist (CKS)
• Experience with zero-trust architecture, identity-aware proxies, or policy-as-code frameworks
• Familiarity with global data privacy regulations (e.g., GDPR, CCPA)
• Experience contributing to open-source security or SRE tools

Additional Information

• Work Environment: On-site, collaborative engineering environment with embedded team structure
• Engagement Type: Contract position
• Location: Edmond, Oklahoma
• Team Structure:
• Reports to the Director of SRE
• Receives day-to-day direction from Engineering Leadership
• Collaborates closely with centralized SRE, DevOps, CloudOps, SecOps, and Observability teams

This is an opportunity to play a critical role in advancing secure, reliable infrastructure practices while working closely with high-performing engineering teams in a mission-driven, technology-focused environment.