Senior DevOps Engineer || Remote, US-Based

About Buoy Software

At Buoy, we are reimagining the blood-product donation and collection experience in an industry that has been largely untouched by advances in technology for decades. It is one of the few remaining verticals that have yet to see the transformative power of modern technology and great design. The result is creating huge impact in three distinct areas: making blood product-derived biotherapies more accessible to patients battling life-threatening conditions, creating employment opportunities and economic support in communities that have limited access to resources and creating real business value by increasing the supply of blood-products in a market with compounding demand.

We have been working alongside Join Parachute (www.joinparachute.com/), our sister company, in the opening of small market donation centers across the country that will create local donation center careers, opportunities to donate blood products, and provide financial compensation for those donations that will have a positive economic impact in those communities. We’ll continue to expand our reach to support other companies who could benefit from the products that Buoy has created and developed.

The need for blood products is growing rapidly. We want to close the gap in blood product supply and demand by empowering organizations with the right tools. Buoy is the intuitive, data-driven mobile application for donors.

Why work here?

Because our business focuses on the collection and sale of blood-product in a highly regulated industry, we are uniquely positioned and protected from other competitors or technologies trying to disrupt what we’ve built. Simply put, we have huge opportunity for growth and the only challenge that stands in our way from achieving our goals is our own ability to execute on our strategy. To date, we have been able to successfully deliver and grow and have ambitious plans for our future. If this resonates with you, we hope that you consider joining our team and working towards our mission of unlocking more blood-product supply.

About The Role

As a Senior DevOps Engineer at Buoy Software, you'll play a pivotal role in building and maintaining the infrastructure that powers our blood-product donation and collection platform. You'll be responsible for designing and implementing scalable, secure, and automated infrastructure solutions that support our rapidly growing business. In this position, you'll have the opportunity to work on both greenfield projects and improvements to existing systems, with significant autonomy to implement modern DevOps practices. You'll collaborate closely with our development teams to streamline deployment processes, enhance system reliability, and ensure our platform can scale efficiently as we expand to more donation centers nationwide. This is a unique opportunity to apply your expertise in Kubernetes, Terraform, CI/CD, and cloud infrastructure to make a meaningful impact in an industry that has been largely untouched by advances in technology. Your work will directly contribute to our mission of increasing blood-product supply and creating positive economic impact in communities across the country.

This position will be a fully remote position. We are currently open to considering remote candidates based in the United States.

Applicants must be authorized to work for ANY employer in the U.S. We are unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of an employment Visa at this time.

What you’ll do as a Senior DevOps Engineer:

• Design, implement, and maintain CI/CD pipelines to enable seamless software delivery
• Build and manage containerized infrastructure using Docker and Kubernetes
• Implement Infrastructure as Code using Terraform to provision and manage cloud resources
• Establish and enforce security best practices across infrastructure and deployment processes
• Automate repetitive operational tasks to improve efficiency and reduce human error
• Establish and maintain GitOps workflows to automate infrastructure and application deployments
• Evaluate and integrate new tools and technologies to improve DevOps capabilities
• Monitor system performance and availability, responding to incidents as needed
• Collaborate with development teams to optimize application deployment and runtime environments
• Implement and maintain backup and disaster recovery solutions
• Troubleshoot production issues across the technology stack
• Document processes, architectures, and operational procedures

What we are looking for in Senior DevOps Engineer candidates:

• Strong foundation in Linux systems administration and command-line operations
• Solid understanding of networking fundamentals including TCP/IP, DNS, load balancing, and firewall configuration
• Extensive experience with containerization technologies, particularly Docker, including best practices for image creation and management
• Proven expertise with Kubernetes, including cluster management, deployment strategies, and application architecture
• Experience implementing and maintaining CI/CD pipelines using tools like Jenkins, GitHub Actions, or GitLab CI
• Proficiency with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools, particularly Terraform, for managing cloud resources
• Familiarity with GitOps workflows for infrastructure and application deployment
• Understanding of security best practices across the DevOps lifecycle, including container security, secret management, and vulnerability scanning
• Experience with monitoring and observability solutions for infrastructure and applications
• Knowledge of cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and their native DevOps tooling
• Strong troubleshooting and problem-solving skills for complex, distributed systems
• Experience automating routine operational tasks through scripting (Bash, Python, etc.)
• Ability to collaborate effectively with development teams to improve deployment processes

In the first 30 days, you will…

• Complete comprehensive infrastructure audit and documentation review.
• Set up development environment and gain access to all necessary systems.
• Shadow current deployment processes and identify immediate improvement opportunities.
• Meet with key stakeholders across engineering teams to understand pain points.
• Establish baseline metrics for system performance, deployment frequency, and incident response times.
• Learn how engineering operates at Buoy Software - we’ll help you get accustomed to Buoy’s process, terminology, and other cultural aspects of working here. You’ll shadow team members in meetings.
• Be introduced to the team - we’ll help you start to get to know your colleagues, point of contacts for various scenarios, understanding dynamics within the broader org.
• Go through product demos to start to understand Buoy Software and how it works for both donors experience and donor processing.
• Begin meeting with and getting to know your direct manager.

In the first 60 days, you will…

• Develop infrastructure-as-code templates for existing manual provisioning processes.
• Create custom Grafana dashboards for business-critical metrics with automated anomaly detection.
• Configure auto-scaling policies based on CPU/memory utilization metrics.
• Develop standardized infrastructure patterns using modular Terraform components.
• Implement automated rollback mechanisms for failed deployments.
• Understand goals for the product over the next 6 - 12 months.
• Begin to suggest changes and improvements to the product and/or internal processes.

In the first 90 days, you will…

• Implement GitOps workflow for infrastructure changes with approval gates.
• Configure ArgoCD progressive delivery with automated canary analysis.
• Optimize Kubernetes resource quotas and limits based on actual utilization patterns.
• Implement GitOps-driven compliance scanning with automated remediation.
• Refactor Terraform modules for improved state management and reduced blast radius.
• Implement Kubernetes Operator patterns for application-specific resource management.
• Meet with stakeholders across the broader Buoy Software organization.
• Become more familiar with the other departments across Buoy Software (including leadership, support, customer success, marketing, and people ops).

Why you should be excited about this opportunity:

• You'll own end-to-end infrastructure design and implementation, with the freedom to select the right tools for our engineering challenges
• Tackle a diverse mix of projects from greenfield infrastructure builds to scaling and optimizing existing systems
• Shape our DevOps culture with significant autonomy to implement best practices and modern approaches
• Experience the satisfaction of seeing your infrastructure improvements directly impact application performance and developer productivity
• Join a fast-paced environment where your expertise in Kubernetes, Terraform, CI/CD, and cloud platforms will drive critical decisions
• Be part of a collaborative team that values your input and encourages knowledge sharing
• Help scale our infrastructure alongside our growing business, creating solutions that evolve with our needs
• Balance fun technical challenges with meaningful work that makes a real difference
• See your ideas come to life due to our rapid and iterative development process.
• You’ll help the Buoy team build software for good no matter your role. Your work will directly impact the financial health of our members and create better health outcomes for blood-product recipients. Let that sink in.

Qualities that will make you successful at Buoy Software:

Own all phases of your projects from discovery to delivery.

Buoy builds products for customers working in a highly regulated industry. Regardless of your role at Buoy, you will play a role in the broader mission of supporting our products providing a better experience to donors, center staff, and customers whether you work in product, support, design, operations, or engineering.

Hold strong opinions, loosely held. Be willing to present your own thoughts and work together to come to the best solution.

Work across functions in order to make sure work is feasible, meeting quality standards and delivering value.

Be able to articulate your decisions with logical rationale supported by the needs of the user, business, project requirements and feedback from subject matter experts and teammates.

As a startup, sometimes our jobs require us to work outside of our traditional roles in order to get work across the finish line. While your primary role will be in one department/team you may be asked at times to assist with other teams’ tasks necessary to get work completed.

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Employment at Buoy Software is contingent upon achievement of satisfactory results on your background check and reference check and your ability to provide proof of your identity and eligibility to accept employment in the United States.

At Buoy Software, we believe in empowering our team to work in a way that suits them best. We offer a fully remote work environment and flexible schedules so you can balance your career and personal life on your terms. Your health and well-being are important to us, which is why we provide comprehensive insurance coverage (medical, vision, dental) to ensure you're taken care of. We also offer a 401(k) program to help you plan for the future, generous parental leave to support you during those important life moments, and a home office stipend to help you create a workspace that inspires productivity and comfort. Join us and be part of a company that values innovation, flexibility, and your overall happiness.