Server Hardware Systems Engineer (Starlink)

About the Role

The Starlink Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) team is hiring a Server Hardware Systems Engineer to own the health of the server fleet as it scales rapidly. The role is primarily located in offices but encourages time spent in data centers.

Key Responsibilities

• Own the end-to-end hardware repair lifecycle for the Starlink server fleet and its components: triage alerts, isolate failures, drive removal from production, repair, validation, and return to service.
• Manage vendor support cases and coordinate on-site work with data center remote hands and field technicians.
• Build the software and automation for hardware telemetry and alerting, diagnostics, production drain/return, alert silencing, and post-repair validation.
• Define, measure, and report fleet hardware metrics (e.g., MTTR, component failure rates), and publish status updates.
• Write runbooks, methods of procedure (MOPs), and training material for incident resolution.
• Validate new server hardware, including burn-in, firmware, and configuration checks.
• Use fleet failure trends to drive server design, selection, qualification, and corrective action.

Requirements & Tech Stack

• Automation-first mindset.
• Experience with telemetry, alerting, and automation for operating large fleets.
• Experience coordinating with network operations, field technicians, hardware vendors, and data center partners.
• Experience shaping server design, selection, and qualification using fleet reliability data.
• Experience with commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) and custom-designed server platforms.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, computer engineering, electrical engineering, information technology, or another STEM discipline; OR 2+ years of professional experience in server hardware operations, data center operations, or SRE in lieu of a degree.
• 1+ years of professional experience troubleshooting and repairing enterprise server hardware in a production environment.
• 1+ years of professional experience administering Linux systems.
• Experience writing scripts or software in at least one language, such as Python, Go, or Bash.

Preferred Skills and Experience

• 3+ years of experience operating a large server fleet in production data center environments.
• Hands-on experience diagnosing and replacing server components such as CPUs, DIMMs, NVMe SSDs, NICs, transceivers, power supplies, and system boards.
• Experience with out-of-band management and baseboard management controllers (e.g., HPE iLO, Dell iDRAC, OpenBMC) using Redfish and IPMI.
• Proficiency with Linux hardware diagnostics (e.g., kernel/machine check logs, EDAC, ipmitool, smartctl, nvme-cli, ethtool).
• Software development experience in Python or Go, including building production tools, services, and automation.
• Experience building monitoring and alerting with Prometheus, Grafana, and Alertmanager, including writing custom exporters.
• Experience operating Kubernetes clusters, including node lifecycle tasks.
• Experience with server networking, including NICs, optics, cabling, and link-level troubleshooting.
• Experience managing vendor support cases, RMAs, and warranty processes, and coordinating remote hands.
• Familiarity with firmware management, TPM enrollment, secure boot, UEFI, and server provisioning at scale.
• Experience designing operational workflows in ticketing systems and building dashboards for operational metrics (e.g., MTTR, backlog size).
• Experience with server hardware qualification, burn-in testing, or new product introduction.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced environment and manage multiple concurrent repairs.

Additional Requirements

• Willing to work extended hours and weekends as needed.
• Willing to participate in an on-call rotation.
• Willing to travel domestically and internationally and hold or obtain a valid passport.
• Ability to work in data center environments for extended periods (standing, kneeling, working in loud, variable-temperature conditions).
• Ability to lift, push, and pull 50lbs.

ITAR Requirements

• Must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. lawful, permanent resident, refugee, or asylee, or be eligible to obtain required U.S. Department of State authorizations.