Site Reliability Engineer II - AI & Infrastructure (f/m/d)

Focused Energy is a pioneering international deep-tech company with locations in Germany and the US, dedicated to commercializing laser-driven nuclear fusion. Our mission is to deliver clean, safe, and virtually limitless energy to the world. As we rapidly scale, we seek talented individuals who thrive on bringing clarity and structure to fast-growing environments.

ABOUT THE ROLE

Focused Energy is looking for a Site Reliability Engineer II to help build reliable, secure, observable, and easy-to-operate systems for its internal applications. You’ll own day-to-day reliability, deployments, incident response, monitoring, backup, recovery, and rollback processes across a broad technical environment spanning cloud services, databases, identity, networking, secrets, and CI/CD.

This role is ideal for an engineer who enjoys solving complex operational problems and turning recurring incidents into lasting improvements. Alongside your core infrastructure responsibilities, you’ll provide overflow support for AI-enablement workflows and tools when the dedicated AI Tech Enabler needs additional support.

WHAT YOU’LL DO

- Own the reliability and day-to-day operation of multiple internal applications, deployment platforms, and supporting services.

- Lead the investigation and resolution of incidents and deployment failures across cloud services, databases, identity, networking, secrets, and CI/CD systems.

- Drive automation improvements across build, release, deployment, monitoring, alerting, backup, recovery, rollback, and runbook processes.

- Implement safe, well-tested code, configuration, infrastructure, and database fixes to restore or improve service reliability.

- Develop proposals for cloud, hosting, database, and runtime migrations, as well as horizontal scaling approaches, supported by appropriate testing and rollback plans.

- Build and maintain clear operational documentation, including runbooks, recovery procedures, incident fixes, and system knowledge that can be reused by other engineers.

- Partner with software engineering, IT, security, identity, and external platform-support stakeholders to plan and execute infrastructure changes safely.

- Provide overflow diagnostic and troubleshooting support for AI workflows and tools, including Langdock, without losing focus on core reliability priorities.

WHO YOU ARE

- You take ownership of well-scoped technical work from investigation through testing, deployment, and follow-up.

- You are calm and methodical when responding to live incidents and can diagnose problems across multiple interconnected systems.

- You focus on root-cause resolution rather than repeatedly applying temporary fixes.

- You communicate incidents, trade-offs, risks, and recovery plans clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

- You are proactive about identifying reliability risks, automation opportunities, recurring issues, and operational improvements.

- You make independent decisions on tactical fixes and safe configuration changes while seeking appropriate sign-off for architecture, migration, and scaling decisions.

- You document changes and operational knowledge so that other engineers can support systems effectively.

- You ask for help early when risks or dependencies are unclear and keep the Head of IT informed about significant issues and progress.

DESIRABLE SKILLS & KNOWLEDGE

- Strong experience with Linux, networking, structured troubleshooting, and cloud hosting concepts.

- Experience operating internal applications and deployment platforms in Azure or a comparable cloud environment.

- Practical knowledge of relational databases, particularly PostgreSQL or an equivalent platform, including safe migration and recovery practices.

- Experience with infrastructure as code and CI/CD tools such as OpenTofu, Terraform, GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, or Azure DevOps.

- Knowledge of monitoring, alerting, backup, recovery, rollback automation, incident response, and service reliability practices.

- Experience with horizontal scaling, stateless system design, migrations, and reversible change management.

- Scripting and automation skills, together with experience reducing repetitive operational work.

- Familiarity with identity and access management, least-privilege access, secrets management, FE’s internal AI/SaaS stack, and tools such as Langdock.

Focused Energy is an equal opportunity employer committed to creating an inclusive environment. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender perception or identity, national origin, age, marital status, protected veteran status, or disability status.

Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, Focused Energy will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

Compensation offered will be determined by factors such as location, level, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. Certain roles may be eligible for incentive compensation, equity, benefits.