Staff Release Engineer

Job Title: Staff Release Engineer
Location: San Ramon, CA

Are you a systems thinker who thrives on creating seamless, scalable software delivery workflows? Do you enjoy partnering across engineering teams to build robust pipelines that enable high-velocity and high-quality releases? Are you passionate about developer experience and eager to optimize how code gets to production safely and efficiently?
If so, we invite you to be a part of our innovative team.

As a Staff Release Engineer at Ridgeline, you will own and evolve the systems, tools, and processes that underpin our software delivery lifecycle. Your work will drive efficiency, reliability, and visibility across engineering, making you a force multiplier for product delivery. You'll collaborate closely with Infrastructure, SRE, and Engineering teams to architect resilient CI/CD pipelines, implement automated quality gates, and reduce friction across all deployment paths. Leveraging cutting-edge technologies—including AI tools like GitHub Copilot and ChatGPT—you’ll help accelerate delivery while reducing risk and complexity.

At Ridgeline, how we work matters as much as what we build. Ridgeliners act like owners, choose growth over comfort, and communicate with transparency. We assume positive intent, bias toward action, and bring solutions—not just problems. We celebrate wins, learn from setbacks, and thrive in a resilient, collaborative, high-performing culture.
If this excites you, we’d love to meet you.

You must be work authorized in the United States without the need for employer sponsorship.

The impact you will have:

• Design, maintain, and optimize CI/CD systems to enable scalable, repeatable, and safe delivery

• Establish and enforce release standards such as artifact validation, test coverage thresholds, and dependency checks

• Collaborate with SRE and Infrastructure teams to create automated and consistent release workflows

• Implement observability and rollback capabilities to improve release visibility and safety

• Develop systems to prevent risky changes and support faster mean time to recovery

• Create self-service tools that empower developers and reduce deployment friction

• Define and report on release metrics that drive transparency and continuous improvement

• Champion a product mindset for internal tools by deeply understanding the needs of developer teams

What we look for:

• 4+ years in Release Engineering, DevOps, or Site Reliability Engineering roles

• Expertise with CI/CD systems such as GitHub Actions, Jenkins, ArgoCD, or Spinnaker

• Strong scripting or coding skills (e.g., Python, Go, Bash) and IaC experience with tools like Terraform or Helm

• Deep understanding of release strategies (blue/green, canary, rolling) and artifact/versioning systems

• Passion for automation, testing, and scalable system design

• Experience with Kubernetes and modern cloud-native infrastructure

• Familiarity with observability tools and release health metrics

• Excellent communication and problem-solving skills

• Serious interest in having fun at work

Bonus:

• Experience in high-availability or regulated environments such as finance or healthcare

• Familiarity with Google SRE principles or equivalent operational excellence models

• Background in driving the adoption of DevOps metrics (DORA, MTTR, deployment frequency)

About Ridgeline
Ridgeline is the industry cloud platform for investment management. It was founded by visionary tech entrepreneur Dave Duffield (co-founder of both PeopleSoft and Workday) to apply his successful formula of solving operational business challenges with bold innovation and human connectivity to the unique needs of the investment management industry.

Ridgeline started with a clean sheet of paper and a deep bench of experts bound by a set of core values and motivated to revolutionize an industry underserved by its current tech offerings. We are building a new, modern platform in the public cloud, purpose-built for the investment management industry and we are prioritizing security, agility, and usability to empower business like never before.

With a growing campus in Reno and offices in New York, Lake Tahoe, and the Bay Area, Ridgeline is proud to have built a fast-growing, people-first company that has been recognized by Fast Company as a “Best Workplace for Innovators,” by The Software Report as a “Top 100 Software Company,” and by Forbes as one of “America’s Best Startup Employers.”

Ridgeline is proud to be a community-minded, discrimination-free equal opportunity workplace.

Ridgeline processes the information you submit in connection with your application in accordance with the Ridgeline Applicant Privacy Statement. Please review the Ridgeline Applicant Privacy Statement in full to understand our privacy practices and contact us with any questions:
https://www.ridgelineapps.com/legal/candidate-privacy-policy

Compensation and Benefits 

The cash compensation amount for this role is targeted at $174,000 - $220,000. Final compensation amounts are determined by multiple factors, including candidate experience and expertise, and may vary from the amount listed above. 

As an employee at Ridgeline, you’ll have many opportunities for advancement in your career and can make a true impact on the product. 

In addition to the base salary, 100% of Ridgeline employees can participate in our Company Stock Plan subject to the applicable Stock Option Agreement. We also offer rich benefits that reflect the kind of organization we want to be: one in which our employees feel valued and are inspired to bring their best selves to work. These include unlimited vacation, educational and wellness reimbursements, and $0 cost employee insurance plans. Please check out our Careers page for a more comprehensive overview of our perks and benefits.

*#LI-Hybrid