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Service Reliability Engineer

DRW · Chicago, IL · $180,000–$210,000 a year · IO - Container Infrastructure

Posted Sep 30, 2026 · We last checked this listing on Oct 6, 2026

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Likely interview questions for this role

Written from this job description, not a generic list. Each one notes what the interviewer is really checking.

About your past

Tell me about something you automated that removed toil for your team.

What they are checking: Whether they treat repeated manual work as a problem to eliminate, which is the core of reliability work.

Walk me through an incident you handled from alert to postmortem.

What they are checking: Whether they communicate during incidents and turn the postmortem into real fixes without blame.

What would you do

How would you run a Kubernetes cluster upgrade across on-prem and cloud clusters with minimal disruption?

What they are checking: Planning around version skew, workload disruption budgets and rollback across different environments.

A desk asks for a special cluster setup just for them. How do you respond?

What they are checking: Balancing helpfulness against keeping the platform simple and standard, which the team says it values.

About the work

The Container Infrastructure team runs orchestration on-premises and in the cloud. Walk me through how you have operated Kubernetes in production.

What they are checking: Real hands-on experience with clusters, upgrades and failures rather than only deploying apps onto someone else's cluster.

A pod keeps restarting in a production namespace used by a trading desk. How do you work out why?

What they are checking: A methodical path through events, logs, probes, resource limits and node health instead of guessing.

How do you define what reliable means for a platform that serves trading desks, data scientists and enterprise apps?

What they are checking: Whether they can set service-level objectives that reflect what each type of user actually needs.

How do you approach networking and ingress for containers that need to talk to on-prem trading systems?

What they are checking: Understanding of CNI, service exposure and the latency and security concerns of hybrid connectivity.

How do you manage cluster configuration and deployments so they are repeatable?

What they are checking: Use of infrastructure as code, GitOps and Helm or similar so clusters do not drift.

How do you keep secrets and access to clusters secure while still letting many teams deploy?

What they are checking: Knowledge of RBAC, namespaces and secret management that balances safety with self-service.

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The full job description

As published by DRW.

DRW is a diversified trading firm with over 3 decades of experience bringing sophisticated technology and exceptional people together to operate in markets around the world. We value autonomy and the ability to quickly pivot to capture opportunities, so we operate using our own capital and trading at our own risk. Headquartered in Chicago with offices throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Asia, we trade a variety of asset classes including Fixed Income, ETFs, Equities, FX, Commodities and Energy across all major global markets. We have also leveraged our expertise and technology to expand into three non-traditional strategies: real estate, venture capital and cryptoassets. We operate with respect, curiosity and open minds. The people who thrive here share our belief that it’s not just what we do that matters–it's how we do it. DRW is a place of high expectations, integrity, innovation and a willingness to challenge consensus. The Container Infrastructure team provides scalable on-premises and cloud-based container orchestration services for DRW’s trading desks, data scientists, and enterprise application teams. Our goal is to enable teams to keep focused on their business goals by providing simple, scalable solutions with off the shelf tools and the right amount of focused engineering. We’re looking to expand our Container Infrastructure team. In this role you work closely with other teams and trading desks to ensure the performance and reliability of our Kubernetes platform. The platform is large: hundreds of clusters, thousands of nodes, and dozens of components. Common day-two tasks include development of new components, monitoring costs, and ensuring compute consumption for each desk is optimized. As a member of this team you will help administer the platform, engage with internal customers and infrastructure stakeholders to ensure the platform remains reliable, performant, and cost-effective. Our philosophy: • We believe in relentless automation of repetitive tasks. • We have the curiosity and drive to dig deep and find creative solutions. • We believe our goal is to find the right solution rather than always being right. • We provide exceptional customer service to our teams and trading desks. • We care more that the right thing is done than about rigid job descriptions or boundaries. What you’ll do: • Work with different business units to ensure a successful onboarding and deployment of applications into DRW’s Kubernetes platform. • Relentlessly automate repetitive manual tasks. • Provide exceptional customer service to our platform’s users. • Solve complex problems, build new features/components, get to work every day with exceptionally talented and curious coworkers. Your background: • Experience working with or administering Kubernetes Clusters. • Knowledge of networking, storage, and containerization fundamentals. • Familiarity with AWS and/or Google Cloud Platform. • A service focused attitude: you ask questions and focus on getting the right resources and solutions to people instead of rigid boundaries. • Strong written and verbal communication skills. You can work across teams and have evidence-based discussions on technical and operational topics. • You are eager to learn, collaborate, and find solutions under interesting constraints. Bonus points if you have: • Experience with common Kubernetes operators (Flux, Fluentbit, Fluentd, Prometheus, etc.). • Experience administering on-premise infrastructure. • Experience developing, deploying, and supporting full stack web applications. • Experience with multiple programming languages in both greenfield development and legacy maintenance. The annual base salary range for this position is $180,000 to $210,000 depending on the candidate’s experience, qualifications, and relevant skill set. The position is also eligible for an annual discretionary bonus. In addition, DRW offers a comprehensive suite of employee benefits including group medical, pharmacy, dental and vision insurance, 401k (with discretionary employer match), short and long-term disability, life and AD&D insurance, health savings accounts, and flexible spending accounts. For more information about DRW's processing activities and our use of job applicants' data, please view our Privacy Notice at https://drw.com/privacy-notice . California residents, please review the California Privacy Notice for information about certain legal rights at https://drw.com/california-privacy-notice . [#LI-SK1]  

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