6+ years of experience in site reliability engineering, DevOps, or infrastructure engineering
Proven ability to build or mature an SRE function from the ground up
Strong networking fundamentals including TCP/IP, DNS, and load balancing
Hands-on experience with Kubernetes in production environments
Deep knowledge of observability tools like Prometheus and Grafana
Strong scripting skills in Python or Bash
Experience with cloud platforms and infrastructure as code solutions
Responsibilities
Define and implement SRE practices such as SLOs and error budgets
Enhance reliability and operational excellence across the SaaS platform
Develop and maintain observability infrastructure for proactive monitoring
Lead incident response efforts including on-call rotations and post-mortems
Collaborate with engineering on embedding reliability in the SDLC
Help shape and build the SRE team as the company grows
Benefits
Opportunity to define and lead the reliability engineering function
Work in a dynamic, fast-paced environment with no playbooks
Pathway to leadership within a growing SRE team
Deep collaboration with engineering and product teams
Ability to influence the operational practices of a complex SaaS platform
Full Job Description
Forward is looking for a Site Reliability Engineer
About the Role This is not a "keep the lights on" SRE role. As our first or early SRE hire you will be building the reliability engineering function at Forward - defining how we think about availability, observability, incident response, and operational excellence across a complex, distributed SaaS platform. You will work closely with engineering, infrastructure, and product to ensure our platform meets the reliability bar our enterprise customers demand.
If you thrive in environments where you're handed a problem rather than a playbook this role is for you.
What You'll Own
Define and drive SRE practices from the ground up - SLOs, SLIs, error budgets, and the frameworks the engineering org will actually use
Drive the reliability and operational excellence of the Forward SaaS platform
Build and maintain observability infrastructure - logging, metrics, tracing, and alerting - so the team always knows what's happening before customers do
Lead incident response: on-call rotations, runbooks, post-mortems, and the follow-through to make sure the same incident doesn't happen twice
Partner with engineering teams to embed reliability thinking into the SDLC - capacity planning, load testing, chaos engineering, and production readiness reviews
Help define and build the SRE team as the company scales - this is a foundational hire with a path to leadership
What We're Looking For
6+ years of experience in site reliability engineering, DevOps, or infrastructure engineering in a SaaS or cloud environment
Proven experience building or significantly maturing an SRE function - not just operating within one someone else built
Strong fundamentals in networking - TCP/IP, DNS, routing, switching, firewalls, and load balancing. Experience with network management or observability platforms is a significant plus
Hands-on experience with Kubernetes and container orchestration in production environments
Deep proficiency with observability tooling - Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog, Splunk, or similar
Strong scripting and automation skills in Python, Bash, or similar
Experience with cloud platforms - AWS, GCP, or Azure - including infrastructure as code (Terraform, Ansible, or equivalent)
Track record of owning and improving incident response processes including blameless post-mortems and SLO-driven reliability improvements
Ability to communicate clearly with both engineering teams and non-technical stakeholders - you can explain an outage to a customer-facing team without jargon and explain an SLO to an executive without losing them
Nice to Have
Experience supporting enterprise or federal government customers with high availability requirements
Experience in a foundational or early SRE hire capacity at a growth stage company
What This Role Is Not
A pure ops or NOC role - you are building and engineering, not just monitoring
A siloed function - you will be deeply embedded with product and engineering teams
A ticket-taker - you will be proactively identifying and solving reliability problems before they become incidents
Why Forward
You'll be building something from scratch at a company with real enterprise traction and world-class investors behind it
Our customers include some of the most complex network environments on the planet - the reliability bar is high and the work is genuinely interesting
People-centric culture built by Stanford Ph.D.s who care deeply about doing things the right way
Competitive compensation, equity, and the opportunity to grow into a leadership role as the SRE function scales
The base pay range for this role is between $230,000 and $250,000. Base pay will depend on your skills, qualifications, experience, and location
About Forward Networks
Forward Networks is a software company that provides network assurance and verification solutions for enterprise networks. The company was founded in 2013 by David Erickson and Peyman Kazemian and is headquartered in Palo Alto, California. Forward Networks' platform uses mathematical models to analyze network behavior and identify potential issues before they occur. The company has received funding from investors such as Andreessen Horowitz and A.Capital Ventures.
