Senior DNS Engineer - SRE

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We are Optimum, a leader in the fast-paced world of connectivity, and we're seeking driven and enthusiastic professionals to join our team, empower lives, fuel businesses, and drive innovation. Connectivity is no longer a luxury, but a necessity. A career at Optimum means you'll be enabling progress and enhancing lives by providing reliable, high-speed connectivity solutions that keep the world connected. Our successes, now and in the future, are powered by our amazing product, a commitment to our people and culture, and the connections we make in our communities.

If you are resourceful, collaborative, and passionate about delivering consistent excellence, Optimum is for you!

Job Summary

The Role Senior DNS Engineer - SRE is an expert level technical role responsible for the strategic architecture, global scalability, and ironclad reliability of the mission-critical DNS infrastructure powering our ISP and core network services. This position is designed for a veteran engineer who masters the Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) philosophy-championing automation, observability, and self-healing systems as the standard for Tier-1 operations. You will mentor junior staff and lead the technical roadmap, combining deep IP networking expertise with modern security protocols to defend against sophisticated threats while maintaining sub-millisecond performance for millions of users.

The Impact This is a high-visibility, influential role. As a technical authority, you will drive cross-functional initiatives across Product, Security, and Service Assurance teams. Your mission is to evolve a carrier-grade DNS ecosystem that sets the industry standard for privacy (DoH/DoT) and availability. You will not only manage infrastructure but also define the engineering culture, ensuring our global name services remain resilient, compliant, and ahead of the technological curve.

Responsibilities

• Core Platform Strategy, Architectural Vision: Lead the high-level design and evolution and operation of global, multi-site DNS architectures. Implement advanced Anycast routing strategies, multi-provider redundancy, and zero-touch failover mechanisms.
• Architectural Ownership: Lead the design and evolution of global DNS architectures, ensuring high availability through Anycast routing, multi-provider redundancy, and automated failover mechanisms.
• Strategic Vendor Relations: Act as the primary technical authority in engagements with DNS and infrastructure vendors, driving roadmaps that align with our long-term reliability and security goals.
• Lifecycle & Capacity Management: Oversee the full lifecycle of DNS platforms-including automated software deployments, hardware refreshes, and proactive capacity planning-to stay ahead of traffic growth.
• Standardization & Policy: Optimize, Define and enforce organization-wide standards for DNS record management, security protocols (DNSSEC), and traffic steering policies to optimize user latency.
• Reliability Engineering: Convert \"Strategic Design\" into \"Operational Reality\" by defining Service Level Objectives (SLOs) and Error Budgets for all core name services.

Advanced DNS Operations & SRE

• Protocol Mastery: Serve as the final escalation point for complex protocol issues involving recursion, iteration, and specialized record (A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, TXT, SRV) in a dual-stack environment.
• Security Engineering: Architect robust DNSSEC implementations and global DDoS mitigation strategies. Lead the response to DNS-based threats, including cache poisoning and sophisticated amplification attacks.
• Toil Elimination & Tooling: Lead the development of custom automation frameworks using industry tools. Replace all manual intervention with robust, tested workflows via Ansible, Terraform, or Kubernetes operators.
• Full-Stack Performance Tuning: Optimize Linux kernel parameters for extreme network throughput. Conduct forensic-level analysis of BIND, Unbound, or PowerDNS logs and telemetry to identify latent systemic issues.
• Deep Observability: Design comprehensive monitoring ecosystems using Prometheus, Grafana, and dnstap. Transform raw query data into executive-level insights regarding latency, error rates (NXDOMAIN/SERVFAIL), and user behavior.

Qualifications

• Education: Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Telecommunications, or a related field (or equivalent practical experience)
• Experience: 5+ years in networking or systems engineering, with at least 3 years focused on SRE principles within a high-scale production environment
• DNS Authority: Expert-level experience configuring and maintaining at least three of the following: BIND, Unbound, PowerDNS, AWS Route 53, or Azure DNS
• Advanced Networking: Expert understanding of TCP/IP, BGP (for Anycast), and encrypted transport protocols (DoH/DoT)
• Software Engineering: High proficiency in Python, Go, or Bash, with a proven track record of building production-grade automation tools
• Observability Stack: Deep experience architecting monitoring solutions with Prometheus, Grafana, and OpenTelemetry

Preferred Qualifications

• ISP/Carrier Experience: Previous experience in a Tier-1 or Tier-2 service provider environment managing infrastructure for millions of subscribers
• Cloud-Native DNS: Proven success in managing hybrid-cloud DNS environments and migrating legacy workloads to cloud-native or containerized solutions
• Security Certifications: Relevant certifications (e.g., CISSP, CCNP/CCIE, or SRE-specific certifications) are a plus
• Leadership: Experience mentoring junior engineers and leading complex, multi-quarter technical projects from inception to completion

At Optimum, every action and interaction we take part in, is driven by our three Guiding Principles: Do What's Right, Drive One Optimum, and Make It Happen. These aren't just words, they help us build trust, create real community, and embrace new ways of thinking. Our employees are empowered to do the right thing for our customers and co-workers and to recognize and reward these behaviors when we see them. It's all part of the bigger picture of \"Be The Difference\" where each employee knows they have the power to enact real change, share new ideas, and understand that learning never stop.