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Staff Site Reliability Engineer - Splunk

Okta · Chicago, IL · Tech Ops-610

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 a tool you wrote in Go, Python or Ruby to improve an observability platform.

What they are checking: Whether they have strong coding skills, which the posting stresses.

Tell me about an incident where observability data helped you find the root cause.

What they are checking: Whether they use the platform effectively during real incidents.

What would you do

Splunk search is slow during an incident when everyone needs it most. What do you do?

What they are checking: Whether they can protect platform reliability under peak load.

How do you handle a team that sends far too much log data?

What they are checking: Whether they can work with other teams to reduce noise while keeping useful data.

How would you measure whether the observability platform is serving SRE teams well?

What they are checking: Whether they treat the platform as a product with users and measurable goals.

About the work

How would you optimize Splunk ingestion and storage so search stays fast and costs stay under control?

What they are checking: Whether they understand indexing, retention tiers and data volume management in Splunk.

Walk me through how you'd automate deploying Splunk forwarders or collectors with Terraform.

What they are checking: Whether they treat observability infrastructure as code, as the posting requires.

How would you move a team from basic monitoring to real observability?

What they are checking: Whether they understand logs, metrics and traces working together with SLOs.

How would you design Splunk for high availability?

What they are checking: Whether they understand indexer clustering and search head clustering.

How do you make sure sensitive data like credentials doesn't end up in logs?

What they are checking: Whether they think about security and privacy in log pipelines, which matters at an identity company.

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The full job description

As published by Okta.

Secure Every Identity, from AI to Human Identity is the key to unlocking the potential of AI. Okta secures AI by building the trusted, neutral infrastructure that enables organizations to safely embrace this new era. This work requires a relentless drive to solve complex challenges with real-world stakes. We are looking for builders and owners who operate with speed and urgency and execute with excellence. This is an opportunity to do career-defining work. We're all in on this mission. If you are too, let's talk. Position Overview: We are seeking a highly technical Staff Observability Site Reliability Engineer with a specialty in Splunk to own and evolve our Splunk ecosystem. In this role, you will move beyond simple monitoring to delivering a world class, comprehensive, scalable Observability Platform that enables our SRE teams and business partners. You will treat infrastructure as code —utilizing Terraform and strong coding proficiency in Go, Python, or Ruby —to automate the deployment of agents and collectors across complex distributed systems. Key Responsibilities • Automated Infrastructure: Design, build, and maintain scalable observability infrastructure using tools like Terraform. • Splunk Engineering: Optimize the collection, processing, and storage of log data to ensure high reliability and low latency of our Splunk services • Incident Response: Participate in on-call rotations and lead post-incident reviews to drive systemic improvements and "observability-driven development." • Automation: Eliminate "toil" by automating the deployment and scaling of observability agents and collectors. Required Skills & Experience (The Essentials) Log Management: Minimum 5+ Experience scaling and managing Splunk Cloud at scale (1000+ SVCs), including Workload Management (WLM) and HEC optimization. Visualization: Expertise in creating intuitive, actionable Splunk dashboards that correlate data across multiple sources. SRE Mindset: Minimum 5+ years of experience in an SRE, DevOps, or Systems Engineering role with a focus on high-availability systems. • Programming Proficiency: Strong coding skills in SPL , Go for building internal tools and automating workflows. • Distributed Systems: Deep understanding of Linux internals, networking (TCP/IP, DNS, Load Balancing), and container orchestration (Kubernetes/EKS). • Problem Solving: A data-driven approach to debugging complex, cross-service performance bottlenecks. Bonus Skills (The "Nice-to-Haves") • Telemetry Standards: Hands-on experience with OpenTelemetry (OTel), Vector, or similar frameworks for instrumenting applications. • Charge-back app: Experience in implementing Splunk charge-back app for usage reporting  Cloud Platforms: Experience managing observability native tools within AWS or GCP. Additional requirements: • This position requires the ability to access federal environments and/or have access to protected federal data.  As a condition of employment for this position, the successful candidate must be able to submit documentation establishing U.S. Person status (e.g. a U.S. Citizen, National, Lawful Permanent Resident, Refugee, or Asylee. 22 CFR 120.15) upon hire. • This person must attend in person onboarding in our San Francisco/Chicago office the first week of employment.  #LI-MM #LI-Hybrid P14596_3372199   The annual base salary range for this position for candidates located in the San Francisco Bay area is between: $194,000 — $267,000 USD Below is the annual base salary range for candidates located in California (excluding San Francisco Bay Area), Colorado, Illinois, New York and Washington. Your actual base salary will depend on factors such as your skills, qualifications, experience, and work location. In addition, Okta offers equity (where applicable), bonus, and benefits, including health, dental and vision insurance, 401(k), flexible spending account, and paid leave (including PTO and parental leave) in accordance with our applicable plans and policies. To learn more about our Total Rewards program please visit: https://rewards.okta.com/us .    The annual base salary range for this position for candidates located in California (excluding San Francisco Bay Area), Colorado, Illinois, New York, and Washington is between: $174,000 — $238,000 USD The Okta Experience • Supporting Your Well-Being   • Driving Social Impact  • Developing Talent and Fostering Connection + Community We are intentional about connection. Our global community, spanning over 20 offices worldwide, is united by a drive to innovate. Your journey begins with an immersive, in-person onboarding experience designed to accelerate your impact and connect you to our mission and team from day one. Okta is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, ancestry, marital status, age, physical or mental disability, or status as a protected veteran. We also consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and convictions records, consistent with applicable laws. If reasonable accommodation is needed to complete any part of the job application, interview process, or onboarding please  use this Form to request an accommodation. Notice for New York City Applicants & Employees: Okta may use Automated Employment Decision Tools (AEDT), as defined by New York City Local Law 144, that use artificial intelligence, machine learning, or other automated processes to assist in our recruitment and hiring process. In accordance with NYC Local Law 144, if you are an applicant or employee residing in New York City, please  click here to view our full NYC AEDT Notice.

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