Site Reliability Engineer, AI Observability

Posted Yesterday
Be an Early Applicant
Montréal, QC, CAN
In-Office
Entry level
Information Technology • Consulting
The Role
Own reliability and operations for a self-hosted LLM observability platform running on Kubernetes and AWS. Responsibilities include operating ClickHouse, PostgreSQL, Redis, and ingestion workers; implementing monitoring, alerting, and service levels; testing backups and restores; safely upgrading software; maintaining infrastructure as code; automating recurring tasks; and creating runbooks, SOPs, onboarding, and support processes.
Summary Generated by Built In

About us

Appnovation is a global, full-service digital partner that combines Strategy, Experience & Design, Engineering and Managed Services. We build digital solutions that deliver real impact today and serve as foundations for future growth.  Bold ambition. Practical action. Endless possibilities.

We’re looking for a Site Reliability Engineer to keep a shared observability platform for LLM-based applications running for a global life sciences client. The platform is built on Langfuse and self-hosted on Kubernetes on AWS, with ClickHouse as the analytical store, PostgreSQL for metadata and Redis as the ingestion queue, all delivered through Argo CD.

Two things need building rather than maintaining. The platform has no monitoring, alerting or defined service levels today, and you will own putting them in place. Infrastructure is defined as code throughout, in Kubernetes manifests, Helm values and Argo CD applications.

Alongside the platform itself, you will own the runbooks that make an incident survivable by someone other than the author, and the onboarding and support path for the internal teams that depend on the platform.

ROLE RESPONSIBILITIES
  • Platform Operations: Diagnose and resolve failures across ClickHouse, PostgreSQL, Redis, the ingestion workers and the Kubernetes layer beneath them, including ingest backpressure from queue depth and worker drain behaviour.
  • ClickHouse Operations: Own ClickHouse under the operator model, including Keeper quorum, replication, shard and replica topology, and S3 storage tiering.
  • Provable Backup and Restore: Rehearse the restore, time it, document it and test it against its failure modes, rather than assuming a successful backup job means a recoverable system.
  • Safe Upgrades: Plan and rehearse upgrades in a lower environment, with a rollback plan that works even if a migration is only partly complete.
  • Monitoring and Service Levels: Build monitoring, alerting and service levels from scratch, so problems are found here before a user reports them.
  • Infrastructure as Code: Maintain Kubernetes manifests, Helm values and Argo CD applications so every change goes through the delivery pipeline.
  • Runbooks and SOPs: Write and maintain runbooks and SOPs that let a colleague resolve an incident without the author present.
  • Onboarding and Support: Run the onboarding and support path for internal teams that depend on the platform, and triage what they bring.
  • Automation: Turn recurring operational work into automation.
  • Upgrade Partnership: Work with the platform engineer who owns what the platform offers. They decide what to adopt and how it is configured; you own the migration and its rollback.
QUALIFICATIONS
  • Hands-on experience with Kubernetes on AWS (managed EKS), with routine work done through Helm values and Argo CD applications.
  • Hands-on experience running ClickHouse in production, including replication and Keeper quorum, shard and replica topology, and backup and restore, ideally run through an operator.
  • Experience building monitoring and alerting from scratch, including service levels that reflect what users actually experience rather than what is easy to measure.
  • Experience upgrading self-hosted software safely, including schema migrations, rehearsal in a lower environment and a rollback plan for a partly completed migration.
  • PostgreSQL and Redis operations deep enough to debug metadata-store and queue problems, including backpressure and worker drain.
  • Strong operational writing: runbooks, SOPs and post-incident reviews that a colleague can follow unaided during an incident.
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
  • Observability engineering, including OpenTelemetry Collector pipelines, alerting design and Grafana dashboards.
  • OIDC or enterprise SSO integration with a corporate identity provider.
  • GitHub Actions for plan and apply pipelines with approval gates.
  • Experience running LLM observability tools such as Langfuse, LangSmith or Arize Phoenix.
  • Experience in pharma, life sciences or another regulated industry.
WHO YOU ARE
  • You don’t trust a backup until you’ve restored from it
  • You want to find problems before users do
  • You write runbooks for the person on call at 3am, not for yourself
  • You stay calm in incidents and focus on fixing the process afterward
  • You automate anything you have to do twice
  • You work well inside a client team and build trust quickly
  • You have prior experience in consulting
  • Prior experience and connections in the Life Sciences industry is preferred
Thank you for your interest in a career with Appnovation Technologies! Please note that only those selected for an interview will be contacted.
 
At Appnovation, we recognize that diverse teams are the strongest teams. Diversity, Equity & Inclusion is not only something that we embrace - we celebrate it! We are proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer and we encourage applicants from all backgrounds, lived experiences and industries to apply. Come join us at Appnovation, and learn more about how we stay true to our company values as we build better lives through better digital.

Accommodations are available upon request throughout the recruitment process.

Skills Required

  • Hands-on experience with Kubernetes on AWS, including managed EKS, Helm values, and Argo CD applications
  • Production experience running ClickHouse, including replication, Keeper quorum, shard and replica topology, and backup and restore
  • Experience building monitoring and alerting from scratch, including user-focused service levels
  • Experience safely upgrading self-hosted software, including schema migrations, lower-environment rehearsals, and rollback plans
  • Deep operational experience with PostgreSQL and Redis, including backpressure and worker drain troubleshooting
  • Strong operational writing skills for runbooks, SOPs, and post-incident reviews
  • Observability engineering experience, including OpenTelemetry Collector pipelines, alerting design, and Grafana dashboards
  • OIDC or enterprise SSO integration experience
  • Experience with GitHub Actions plan and apply pipelines with approval gates
  • Experience running LLM observability tools such as Langfuse, LangSmith, or Arize Phoenix
  • Experience in pharmaceutical, life sciences, or another regulated industry
  • Prior consulting experience
  • Prior experience and connections in the Life Sciences industry
Am I A Good Fit?
beta
Get Personalized Job Insights.
Our AI-powered fit analysis compares your resume with a job listing so you know if your skills & experience align.

The Company
HQ: Vancouver
372 Employees
Year Founded: 2007

What We Do

Inspiring Possibility Appnovation is a full service digital consultancy with experience and capacity to meet the needs of even the largest most complex of organizations in the world. Our services portfolio enables us to offer clients the best of experiences when working with our teams so as to make sure we keep the focus on their needs, customers and delivering tangible value to the business. End to end services; endless ideas.

Similar Jobs

Takeda Logo Takeda

Account Manager

Healthtech • Software • Analytics • Biotech • Pharmaceutical • Manufacturing
Remote or Hybrid
Québec, QC, CAN
50000 Employees
108K-149K Annually

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Logo Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Wireless Networking Tester (QA) / Testeur réseautique sans-fil (QA)

Artificial Intelligence • Cloud • Information Technology • Consulting
In-Office
Saint-Laurent, Montréal, QC, CAN
85422 Employees
65K-108K Annually

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Logo Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Named Accounts Manager - Networking / Gestionnaire de comptes nommés - Réseau

Artificial Intelligence • Cloud • Information Technology • Consulting
In-Office
Montréal, QC, CAN
85422 Employees
218K-404K Annually
Remote or Hybrid
11 Locations
2449 Employees
107K-170K Annually

Similar Companies Hiring

Axle Health Thumbnail
Artificial Intelligence • Healthtech • Information Technology • Logistics
Santa Monica, CA
25 Employees
NODA AI Thumbnail
Artificial Intelligence • Information Technology • Software • Cybersecurity
Sydney, AU
54 Employees
Golden Pet Brands Thumbnail
Digital Media • eCommerce • Information Technology • Marketing Tech • Pet • Retail • Social Media
El Segundo, California
178 Employees

Sign up now Access later

Create Free Account

Please log in or sign up to report this job.

Create Free Account