Senior Site Reliability Engineer

Xilis, Inc.

is an innovation-driven biotech company developing its proprietary MicroOrganoSphere (“MOS”) Technology for functional precision oncology.

Xilis’ MOS Technology enables rapid and scalable generation of patient tumor models that retain patient-specific tumor biology and tumor microenvironment, representing one of the most translationally-relevant ex vivo technologies for precision oncology drug discovery and development.

Located in Research Triangle Park, Durham, NC, Xilis is building a functional precision medicine platform that incorporates scaled multi-modal profiling of therapeutic activity and AI/ML-enabled analytics to catalyze functional precision medicine drug discovery, development and diagnostics.

Collectively, Xilis aims to harness its MOS Platform to enable development of the most effective therapeutics and guide them to the right patients at the right time.

Impact As Senior Site Reliability Engineer, you'll power our breakthrough cancer research by delivering reliable, scalable, and cost-effective cloud infrastructure.

Working in our fast-paced startup environment, you'll ensure our scientists and engineers can innovate without constraints, keeping our critical systems running smoothly while continuously improving our technology platform.

Main Objectives

Optimize our AWS cloud infrastructure for research applications, focusing on performance, reliability, and cost while managing infrastructure through code

Implement monitoring, alerting, and disaster recovery systems to ensure high availability

Collaborate with data science teams on ML pipelines and infrastructure

Drive technical excellence in cloud operations, MLOps, and deployment pipelines, containerization, and security

Responsibilities

Build and manage our AWS cloud infrastructure (compute, storage, networking, databases) with appropriate security controls and IAM policies

Deploy and manage Kubernetes clusters utilizing tools like Karpenter, Helm, and Prometheus

Implement infrastructure as code using Terraform, with expertise in modules, state management, and custom providers

Set up monitoring, logging, and alerting systems using tools like Prometheus, Grafana, CloudWatch, etc

Actively track and optimize cloud costs across all environments

Support MLOps infrastructure by maintaining data pipelines using tools such as Argo and Metaflow

Troubleshoot infrastructure issues and execute routine maintenance tasks including patching and backups

Document critical infrastructure configurations and operational procedures

Requirements

5+ years of experience in software engineering with a focus on DevOps and Site Reliability Engineering

Expert-level knowledge of AWS services and architecture with strong coding skills

Deep expertise with Kubernetes ecosystem (Karpenter, Helm, Istio, etc.)

Advanced skills with Terraform and building modern CI/CD pipelines in an agile environment

Strong understanding of networking (VPCs, VPNs, Direct Connect) and security best practices

Fully proficient with Git and agile development practices

Exceptional troubleshooting skills and cost optimization experience

Demonstrated ability to lead projects and initiatives in a fast-paced environment

Bonus Points

Experience with MLOps infrastructure (Argo, Metaflow, Airflow)

Knowledge of serverless Kubernetes platforms (Knative, KubeVirt, OpenFaaS)

Strong Python backend engineering skills with ability to contribute to application development tasks

Prior experience in fast-moving startups

Domain experience in life sciences or biotechnology

Enterprise networking experience (Palo Alto firewalls, Juniper switches/APs)

Full-Time

Xilis was created when its three founders — an engineer, a physician, and a biologist — decided to come together and commercialize their technology to transform cancer care. We are committed to building a team that represents a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity, or Veteran status. Furthermore, even if your work experience isn't perfectly aligned with what we've described above, if you're excited about what we're building then we want to talk to you! Xilis offers comprehensive health, vision, dental & retirement plans, and unlimited PTO. We are a remote-friendly team: our headquarters are in Durham, North Carolina, but we have team members across the US (and beyond!).