Senior Site Reliability Engineer, Gaming - USDS

Responsibilities

We are the Gaming SRE team, responsible for the stability and performance of our global gaming infrastructure. Our mission is to ensure 24/7 seamless gameplay for millions of users through automation, robust monitoring, and rapid incident response. We bridge the gap between engineering and operations to build a reliable and scalable gaming ecosystem. We are looking for a Site Reliability Engineer who is passionate about building resilient systems that power seamless multiplayer experiences. As an SRE at USDS, you will bridge the gap between game development and infrastructure. You will be responsible for the health, performance, and scalability of our global game servers and backend services, ensuring that players around the world have a lag-free experience 24/7. Responsibilities - Scalability & Performance: Design and implement auto-scaling solutions for game dedicated servers (DGS) to handle massive spikes during game launches and seasonal events. - Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Manage and provision multi-region cloud infrastructure using tools like Terraform or Pulumi. - Monitoring & Observability: Build robust monitoring dashboards and alerting systems to detect "micro-stutters" or latency issues before they impact the player base. - Incident Response: Participate in an on-call rotation to troubleshoot and resolve high-priority production issues, followed by blameless post-mortems. - Cost Optimization: Balance high-performance hardware requirements (like high-clock speed CPUs for game sims) with cloud cost-efficiency. - CI/CD Pipelines: Streamline the deployment of game builds and backend microservices to ensure rapid, safe releases.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications - Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a related technical background involving software/system engineering, or equivalent working experience. - 2+ years of SRE or DevOps experience in large scale online services - Programming experience with at least one of the following languages: C, C++, Java, Python, C# or Go. Preferred Qualifications - Expert knowledge of AWS, Google Cloud (Google Cloud Platform), Azure or OCI (specifically focused on global networking and compute). - Deep understanding of Linux internals, networking protocols (UDP/TCP), and performance tuning - Extensive knowledge of networking, operation systems, database systems and container technology. - Good understanding of every aspect of microservice architecture, and hands on experience in troubleshooting in large scale distributed systems. - Hands on experience in common opensource systems such as Linux, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis and ELK. - Experience in building solutions with AWS, Google, Azures and other cloud services is a plus. - Passionate, self-motivated and good teamwork skills.

Job Information

[For Pay Transparency]Compensation Description (Annually)

The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $187040 - $438000 annually.

Compensation may vary outside of this range depending on a number of factors, including a candidate's qualifications, skills, competencies and experience, and location. Base pay is one part of the Total Package that is provided to compensate and recognize employees for their work, and this role may be eligible for additional discretionary bonuses/incentives, and restricted stock units.

Benefits may vary depending on the nature of employment and the country work location. Employees have day one access to medical, dental, and vision insurance, a 401(k) savings plan with company match, paid parental leave, short-term and long-term disability coverage, life insurance, wellbeing benefits, among others. Employees also receive 10 paid holidays per year, 10 paid sick days per year and 17 days of Paid Personal Time (prorated upon hire with increasing accruals by tenure).

The Company reserves the right to modify or change these benefits programs at any time, with or without notice.

For Los Angeles County (unincorporated) Candidates:

Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with all federal, state, and local laws including the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers and the California Fair Chance Act. Our company believes that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship on the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of the conditional offer of employment:

1. Interacting and occasionally having unsupervised contact with internal/external clients and/or colleagues;

2. Appropriately handling and managing confidential information including proprietary and trade secret information and access to information technology systems; and

3. Exercising sound judgment.

About USDS

TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC is dedicated to the safety and security of millions of Americans who create, discover, and connect with what they love on the apps we operate. The Joint Venture has been established in compliance with the Executive Order signed by President Trump on September 25, 2025. Our foundation is a comprehensive data privacy and cybersecurity program we operate under defined safeguards to protect national security and secure U.S. user data, apps and the algorithm. We safeguard the U.S. content ecosystem, holding decision-making authority for trust and safety policies and moderation. USDS Joint Venture helps ensure Americans can continue to express their creativity, discover new hobbies and interests, and build thriving communities and businesses on a global scale.

On-site presence across teams allows the company to operate with greater speed, alignment, and agility - especially in areas like real-time decision-making, team development, and integrated execution. As such, the company is shifting from a hybrid work model to a fully in-person schedule up to 5 days a week.

Why Join Us

Inspiring creativity is at the core of TikTok's mission. Our innovative product is built to help people authentically express themselves, discover and connect - and our global, diverse teams make that possible. Together, we create value for our communities, inspire creativity and bring joy - a mission we work towards every day.

We strive to do great things with great people. We lead with curiosity, humility, and a desire to make impact in a rapidly growing tech company. Every challenge is an opportunity to learn and innovate as one team. We're resilient and embrace challenges as they come. By constantly iterating and fostering an "Always Day 1" mindset, we achieve meaningful breakthroughs for ourselves, our company, and our users. When we create and grow together, the possibilities are limitless. Join us.

Diversity & Inclusion

TikTok is committed to creating an inclusive space where employees are valued for their skills, experiences, and unique perspectives. Our platform connects people from across the globe and so does our workplace. At TikTok, our mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy. To achieve that goal, we are committed to celebrating our diverse voices and to creating an environment that reflects the many communities we reach. We are passionate about this and hope you are too.

USDS Reasonable Accommodation

USDS is committed to providing reasonable accommodations in our recruitment processes for candidates with disabilities, pregnancy, sincerely held religious beliefs or other reasons protected by applicable laws. If you need assistance or a reasonable accommodation, please reach out to us at