Senior Devops Engineer (AWS)

Read-A-Thon is seeking its first dedicated in-house AWS/DevOps engineer to own infrastructure, reliability, and deployment tooling across multiple live products. The role manages AWS architecture, compute, databases, networking, CI/CD, observability, security, incident response, and cross-team infrastructure support.

Responsibilities:

• Multi-account AWS architecture — administer and harden a multi-account AWS Organization (production, development, and monitoring accounts) with least-privilege IAM, proper root/administrative credential hygiene, and durable secrets management (moving us off ad-hoc password storage and onto a real secrets manager)
• Compute & scaling — manage EC2 fleets behind Application Load Balancers, Auto Scaling Groups, and launch templates backed by a golden-AMI deployment pipeline; modernize legacy standalone instances toward containerized (ECR/ECS) or otherwise more resilient patterns where it makes sense
• Databases — administer Amazon Aurora MySQL clusters (multi-database, multi-tenant schemas) including read replica strategy, credential scoping (moving application traffic off shared/master-level database users onto least-privilege service accounts), and CDC-based real-time data pipelines (Epsio) feeding BI and marketing systems
• Networking & access — operate a Tailscale-based zero-trust network (ACLs, subnet routers, tagged service identities) as our primary access layer, including migrating legacy DNS off a legacy registrar onto modern DNS/CDN infrastructure (Cloudflare / Route 53)
• CI/CD — own and improve GitLab CI/CD pipelines (OIDC-based AWS role assumption, environment-scoped deploys, secrets-as-CI-variables) across a PHP monolith and a Laravel application; drive the migration of hardcoded application secrets into properly managed CI/CD variables and parameter stores
• Observability & incident response — build out real monitoring where gaps exist today (CloudWatch Logs/Alarms/Synthetics, external uptime monitoring, WAF logging), define on-call/runbook practices, and lead incident response for production issues, including root-cause writeups
• Security posture — manage AWS WAF rules, resolve longstanding dependency/composer security advisories, own certificate lifecycle management (TLS, Apple Pay/payment-processing certs), and generally reduce the accumulated operational risk of a fast-growing, historically under-resourced infrastructure
• Cross-team support — work directly with a small in-house engineering team and outside contractors, and interface with third-party MSPs supporting sibling properties

Requirements:

• 5+ years in a DevOps/SRE/Infrastructure role with deep, hands-on AWS experience (not just "used AWS" — configured

IAM policies, debugged Aurora replication, tuned Auto Scaling, written CloudFormation/Terraform from scratch)

• Real production incident experience: you've diagnosed a live outage under pressure, found the actual root cause (not

just the symptom), and closed every downstream copy of the fix (config, image/AMI, and CI/CD source of truth) — not

just the first thing that unblocked traffic

• Strong Linux systems administration fundamentals — filesystems, systemd, log management, disk/volume operations,

recovering access to a box when the "normal" path (SSH key, SSM agent) isn't available

• Experience with CI/CD pipeline design (GitLab CI/CD strongly preferred) and secrets management done right
• Comfort working across old and new: you can support and gradually modernize a 10+ year old PHP codebase while also

building out reliability tooling for a newer Laravel application, without treating either as beneath you

• Excellent judgment around production risk — knowing when to move fast, when to get a second pair of eyes, and how to

communicate a live incident clearly to non-technical stakeholders

• Experience with CDC/real-time data replication tools (Debezium, Epsio, or similar)
• Experience with Tailscale or another zero-trust/mesh VPN platform
• Payment processing / PCI-adjacent infrastructure experience
• Prior experience being the first dedicated DevOps hire at a company — you like building the practices, not just following them
• Experience using AI coding/ops tools (e.g., Claude Code or similar) as part of your actual workflow — for infrastructure investigation, incident diagnosis, or accelerating day-to-day DevOps work, not just general familiarity with AI chatbots