Principal Site Reliability Engineer

This role shapes the long-term strategy for the infrastructure behind one of the most demanding platforms in sports betting and gaming. It drives the architectural direction of cloud and on-premise platforms, helping engineering teams build, deploy, and operate highly reliable systems at scale. Working across Platform Engineering and Site Reliability Engineering, the role influences how the organisation modernises its infrastructure, strengthens operational excellence, and prepares the platform for the next generation of growth.

• Define and execute the long-term strategy for the Kubernetes platform across Google Kubernetes Engine, Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service, RKE2, and on-premise environments, ensuring reliability, scalability, and operational consistency.
• Drive architectural decisions across critical infrastructure, including cluster lifecycle management, networking, identity and access management, observability, autoscaling, capacity planning, and cost optimisation.
• Lead large-scale platform initiatives across multiple engineering teams, establishing technical direction, engineering standards, and measurable outcomes that improve platform reliability and developer experience.
• Establish and evolve reliability practices by defining service level objectives, service level indicators, and error budget frameworks that align platform performance with business priorities.
• Build automation-first infrastructure through Infrastructure as Code, GitOps workflows, self-healing systems, and internal platform tooling that improve engineering velocity and reduce operational overhead.
• Champion the responsible adoption of AI-powered engineering capabilities that improve operational efficiency, accelerate incident response, and enhance developer productivity.
• Lead critical platform incidents, drive post-incident improvements, and strengthen platform resilience through automation, capacity planning, and operational excellence.
• Mentor senior engineers, influence technical strategy across the organisation, and elevate engineering excellence through architecture reviews, coaching, and technical leadership.

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or a related technical field.
• At least 8 years of experience designing, operating, and scaling distributed cloud and on-premise infrastructure, including at least 3 years operating at the Staff, Principal, or equivalent technical leadership level.
• Proven experience leading large-scale infrastructure or platform initiatives that require cross-functional alignment and long-term technical ownership.
• Deep expertise with Kubernetes, including cluster architecture, networking, storage, security, operators, lifecycle management, and large-scale production operations.
• Extensive experience building and operating production infrastructure in AWS and Google Cloud Platform using Infrastructure as Code technologies such as Terraform, Pulumi, or similar tools.
• Strong software development experience in Go, Python, or both, with expertise in GitOps, continuous integration and continuous delivery, observability, distributed systems, Linux, and reliability engineering principles.
• Experience incorporating AI-powered tools into engineering workflows while applying sound judgment around reliability, security, and operational risk.
• Exceptional communication and leadership skills with a proven ability to mentor engineers, influence technical strategy, and drive engineering excellence.
• May be required to obtain a gaming licence issued by the appropriate state agency as a condition of employment; the company will guide the process if relevant.

• Experience working in regulated industries.
• Experience in hybrid cloud environments.
• Contributing to open-source projects.
• Holding cloud certifications.

• Compensation includes bonus and equity as applicable.
• Compensation range reflects new hire pay rates for the position across all US locations; individual pay is determined by work location and additional factors including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training.

• Benefits as applicable.

DraftKings is a publicly traded (NASDAQ: DKNG) technology company headquartered in Boston. It is a regulated gaming company, and employees may be required to obtain a gaming licence issued by the appropriate state agency as a condition of employment; the company will guide them through the process if relevant. DraftKings is integrating AI as an integral part of its present and future, powering how work gets done, guiding smarter decisions, and sparking bold ideas.