Senior Site Reliability Engineer

Mithril is actively seeking talented candidates at the Senior to Principal level, with leveling determined based on experience and demonstrated expertise. We welcome individuals who bring deep technical knowledge, strategic thinking, and a track record of impact, and we tailor roles to align with each candidate’s unique strengths and career trajectory.

About Mithril

At Mithril, we are transforming the way AI companies access compute power. Our mission is to orchestrate the world’s compute capacity, making it easier to use and optimized for AI workloads. We're building a new type of public cloud—one designed specifically for AI, where accessing high-performance compute is as simple and reliable as flipping a switch.

Spun out of a Stanford PhD lab just over a year ago, Mithril has already gained the backing of top-tier investors like Sequoia, Lightspeed, Jeff Dean, Eric Schmidt, and others. With $80M in funding, we’ve secured customers and are generating revenue.

Today’s machine learning infrastructure is overly complex. Engineers are forced to push through challenges in hardware and capacity, when their focus should be on solving big problems and driving innovation. Our Omnicloud Platform changes that. By abstracting away hardware management and providing seamless access to compute resources, we enable engineers to focus on what really matters—building transformative AI solutions.

We're not just making compute accessible; we're making it flexible, scalable, and tailored for the unique demands of cutting-edge AI. Our infrastructure marketplace brings the power of state-of-the-art hardware and Mithril’s Omnicloud Platform and software strengths, enabling AI companies to innovate faster and more efficiently.

Working at Mithril

As an engineer at Mithril, you’ll be at the forefront of building the infrastructure that powers the future of AI. Your role is critical—not just in scaling our systems, but in ensuring they are reliable and secure at every level. 

You will help Mithril build and operate solutions that harvest compute resources world-wide, and make them available to global customers at every aspect of the emerging AI / ML ecosystems – from high-performance clusters to foundation models to finetuning to inferencing to mixture of experts to agentic application workflows. You will solve world-class technical challenges in enabling cutting-edge AI workloads to leverage humanity's knowledge, with planet-scale computing. You will help our customers succeed on every front in using the power of AI to make the world a better place.

If you're motivated by the challenge of scaling and securing the core infrastructure behind AI and thrive in a fast-paced, high-impact environment, Mithril is the place for you. Here, autonomy, ownership, and high-quality engineering are paramount. You will be part of a collaborative team pushing the boundaries of technology, and be a dependable partner of our customers and suppliers. We value qualities like can-do attitude, clear communication, meticulous engineering, relentless innovation. Join us and be part of something transformative! 

Joining Mithril

As a key member of our Supply engineering team, you’ll enable the sustainable, reliable growth of Mithril’s compute supply. You’ll be a dedicated technical representative to oversee day-to-day technical operations across our supply-customer fleet, as well as manage compute partner relationships both before and after acquisition. 

You’ll apply cutting-edge techniques and tooling with a focus on managing the stability of advanced GPU services and optimizing monitoring, alerting, and incident response frameworks, guided by Service Level Indicators (SLIs) and Objectives (SLOs).

Collaboration is at the heart of this role—you’ll work closely with internal product teams and external Mithril partners. Participation in an on-call rotation will be essential to maintain service reliability.

If you’re passionate about engineering cloud-based datacenter reliability and thrive in a dynamic environment where innovation and stability go hand in hand, Mithril offers a unique opportunity to drive impactful change and shape the future of our infrastructure.

Responsibilities

• Design, deploy, and manage scalable, secure, and highly available Kubernetes clusters in both cloud and on-premises environments
• Execute, refine, and create Ansible playbooks to perform routine maintenance, load testing, and system burn-in operations across the Mithril’s fleet
• Deploy and oversee monitoring systems, such as Grafana, to proactively detect issues and anomalies in our supplier environment
• Establish and uphold service level objectives (SLOs) and service level indicators (SLIs) to gauge and uphold system reliability
• Leading or participating in incident response and root cause analysis
• Provide regular updates on machine operability, swiftly notifying internal and external partners of disruptions to maintain system availability and supplier confidence
• Serve as the primary liaison with suppliers, maintaining a regular meeting cadence to communicate Mithril’s requirements and address supplier inquiries
• Coordinate cross-functional supply-related initiatives, ensuring all stakeholders are informed, aligned, and prepared for upcoming changes or maintenance events
  
  

Requirements

• Proven experience deploying, scaling, and maintaining production-grade Kubernetes clusters across both cloud or on-prem environments
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent professional experiences
• Experience working with Linux systems administration and command-line interfaces
• Ability to create technical documentation and technical specs
• Scripting and automation skills (Python, Bash, or similar)
• Understanding of key infrastructure metrics (CPU, memory, network utilization, error rates)
• Understanding of data center operations: disaster recovery, maintenance schedules, capacity planning
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with ability to translate technical concepts for various audiences
• Project management experience and ability to handle multiple priorities
• Demonstrated problem-solving and analytical thinking skills
• Experience leading or participating in incident response and root cause analysis 
  
  

Nice to have

• Familiarity with GPU/CPU cluster management and optimization
• Proficiency with Git or similar version control systems
• Experience with Prometheus or Grafana monitoring and observability tools 
• Experience in technical training or presenting technical content
• Prior experience as a Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) in the AI/ML domain is highly desirable
• Familiar with the challenges around scaling large scale infrastructure
• Familiarity with hardware lifecycle management (RMA)
• Experience in technical customer or vendor-facing roles

Benefits

• Health, dental, and vision coverage for you and your dependents
• 401k Plan with 4% company match
• 21 days of PTO & 14 company holidays; including 2 floating holidays

Salary Range Information

In consideration of market analysis and various pertinent factors, the remuneration bracket for this role is set between $170,000 and $230,000. Nevertheless, adjustments beyond this range could be warranted for candidates whose qualifications substantially deviate from those delineated in the job description.

In-Office requirement

At Mithril, we take our work extremely seriously, though not always ourselves. We recognize that we are striving to achieve something substantial—an all-too-rare and elusive counterfactual contribution. Our work is not easy, so we seek out any lever that can accelerate our progress and increase the likelihood of realizing our full ambitions. Working collaboratively in person is one such lever.

Our headquarters is in Palo Alto (next to Caltrain on University Ave.), and we recently opened a new office in San Francisco (Financial District/SoMa) for our teammates based there. We expect team members to primarily work from their local office (Palo Alto or San Francisco), with everyone gathering at HQ one day a week while our team remains small and cross-team collaboration is critical.

This approach is built on trust. We take our mission seriously and are committed to fostering an environment where you can make impactful decisions and drive success. We also understand that life can present challenges, and if extenuating circumstances arise, we’re here to support you.

Ultimately, we believe this guidance helps us be as effective as possible while maintaining the spirit of teamwork and flexibility.

Equal Opportunity Employer

Mithril maintains a strict commitment to Equal Opportunity employment practices. All applicants are evaluated without regard to race, color, religion, creed, national origin, age, sex, gender, marital status, sexual orientation and identity, genetic information, veteran status, citizenship, or any other factors prohibited by local, state, or federal law.

We emphasize that candidates need not fulfill every expectation listed to be eligible for this position. Our objective is to cultivate a diverse team encompassing a spectrum of backgrounds, experiences, and skill sets.