

Stealth VC funded YC startup seeking Backend/Operations Engineer (S09) - wc_hacker

Operations Engineer<p>We seeking a forward-thinking experienced engineer to lead our operations. 
You’ll start out supporting the existing tools that we already have and quickly move on to owning automation and integration projects. You’ll also be responsible for managing and providing active support for mission-critical MySQL production/QA/dev environments. You should have a “can-do” attitude and work well in a cross-functional environment. This position is full-time and will report to the CTO. The position is based in our main office in downtown Burlingame, CA.<p>Responsibilities<p>* Create and maintain tools that facilitate administration of servers<p>* Create and maintain scripts to deploy web applications to multiple environments<p>* Assist in tracking server issues<p>* Understand and debug network, hardware, and Linux OS related issues<p>* Predict growth and scaling issues before they occur and implement solutions<p>* Provides all aspects of MySQL administration: installation, configuration, backup strategy, disaster recovery, upgrades, schema deployment<p>* Implements and manages database replication<p>* Responsible for availability and usability of the database servers<p>* Provide requirements and solutions to expand existing monitoring tools<p>* Quickly diagnose server problems and employ preventive measures to maintain high availability servers<p>* Creating processes to ensure data integrity and identify potential data errors<p>* Performs all other duties as assigned<p>Requirements<p>* Bachelor's Degree in CS, MIS, or other related field preferred or equivalent experience<p>* Deep experience with Linux and hardware systems support for web applications<p>* Working knowledge of ruby or python<p>* Excellent verbal and written communication skills<p>* Excellent time and project management skills<p>Bonus<p>* Security experience<p>* Rails knowledge<p>* Postfix/Sendmail knowledge/experience<p>This position is full time with salary + full health benefits and stock options.<p>Submit your resume to "railsycjob@gmail.com" and tell us something interesting about yourself.
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rdl
This looks like an interesting position, and it seems like maybe you're
putting more emphasis on doing infrastructure/ops yourselves vs. trying to
outsource as much as possible to a hosting or "cloud" provider. Rock on.

While I respect your desire to be stealthy, I'm curious how many developers
you have (i.e. is ops being hired after you've hired ~5 developers, or after
2?), and what are your reasons for (presumably) coloing your own boxes vs.
either using managed hosting or ec2? (I personally think each solution has its
merits, and for anything security or performance/jitter/avail/config critical,
I'd still go with a cage and leasing or buying hardware; EC2 rocks for ease
and in 5 years will be even better, and is great for dealing with peaks)

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wc_hacker
We use the rackspace cloud, but application deployments, mysql administration,
etc are not helped by the cloud. These are still things you need to do
especially at any kind of scale. We are "launching" soon and having someone be
responsible for the numerous servers and infrastructure would be a load off my
mind (i'm the CTO and the only person that knows anything about load
balancers, linux, etc).

We have 4 developers right now, counting me. We are hiring a total of 4
more...probably. Ops/Infrastructure UX QA and user acquisition/general rails
engineer

I am going to move to a more management/new tech investigation role and out of
daily coding/deployment/bug fixing. The ops guy/gal and general rails engineer
will back-fill me.

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mmt
Some free advice (from someone qualified but unavailable):

Give a bit more of an idea as to how senior a person you want (i.e. willing to
pay for).

Indicate if use of MySQL is inflexible, or if the ops person would have
significant input into choice of tools. One could infer it from "as assigned,"
but clarity helps.

Be less stealthy. At least a hint as to what the company is doing, or, barring
that, who the early founders are, is more likely to garner the "right" kind of
attention.

Oh, and kudos on thinking about ops this early!

