About this role
About Alpen Labs Alpen Labs is building the infrastructure layer that expands what Bitcoin can do. We’re building Alpen to become Bitcoin’s financial system, enabling users and institutions to access financial services directly on Bitcoin. Founded by MIT alumni and based in New York, the company focuses on advancing Bitcoin through innovations in zero-knowledge cryptography, scalable Layer 2 systems, and trust-minimized programmable infrastructure.
We believe Bitcoin is entering a new phase where developers, institutions, and financial systems will build directly on top of it. Alpen enables this by adding financial services, privacy, and usability layers to Bitcoin, making it practical to use as money at a global scale.
Our team includes engineers and researchers from organizations such as Blockstream, Palantir, and Nethermind, as well as contributors to major open-source cryptography and blockchain projects.
Role Overview As a Senior Site Reliability Engineer (SRE), you will lead the design, scalability, and reliability of Alpen’s core infrastructure. This role is ideal for someone who combines deep technical expertise with a strong sense of ownership and a DevOps mindset. You’ll play a critical role in ensuring our systems are highly available, observable, and resilient as we scale a global, distributed blockchain platform.
You’ll partner closely with engineering, security, and platform teams to drive reliability standards, lead infrastructure initiatives, and mentor other engineers.
Key ResponsibilitiesDesign, build, and maintain highly available, scalable infrastructure on AWS
Lead Kubernetes architecture and operations for production-grade systems
Own and evolve infrastructure as code using Terraform
Design and maintain observability systems using Prometheus, Grafana, and Loki
Define and implement SLIs, SLOs, and error budgets
Lead incident response, postmortems, and reliability improvements
Drive automation across deployments, scaling, and system management
Improve CI/CD pipelines and release processes for speed and safety
Champion DevOps best practices across engineering teams
Lead complex infrastructure and reliability projects end-to-end
Improve the on-call experience through clear alerting, strong documentation, and faster incident resolution
Encourage teams to adopt a DevOps approach by empowering engineers to use infrastructure tools independently while elevating operational standards
Collaborate effectively within a globally distributed team
What We’re Looking ForMust-Have Skills & Experience
10+ years of experience in SRE, DevOps, or related roles
Deep expertise in AWS, Kubernetes, and Terraform in production environments
Strong hands-on experience with observability stacks (Prometheus, Grafana, Loki, alerting systems)
Proven ability to lead infrastructure or reliability-focused projects
Strong understanding of distributed systems, networking, and Linux systems
Experience working in globally distributed, async teams
Based in the United States
Nice-to-Have (Bonus Points!)
Experience with L1 and/or L2 blockchain infrastructure (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Polygon, ZkSync or similar)
Familiarity with zero-knowledge systems or cryptographic infrastructure
Experience supporting high-throughput, low-latency distributed systems
Background working in startup or high-growth environments
What We Offer What we extend to our new hires is an invitation to actively contribute to the evolution of cutting-edge technologies within the blockchain space. This presents a unique opportunity to innovate and devise creative solutions for complex engineering challenges. To support your journey, we commit to providing all the resources necessary for your learning, growth, and productivity.
Moreover, our compensation package is designed to mirror the passion, dedication, and hard work you invest in your role. We recognize and appreciate your contributions by aligning your exceptional commitment with generous compensation.