Senior Systems Engineer - Remote / Work From Home

We are Assembly Four, a fast growing, purpose-driven technology company dedicated to fostering positive change within the sex work, human rights, LGBTQIA+, and intersecting communities.

We operate on the belief that impact is as important as profit, and work in collaboration with sex workers from around the globe to develop products and services that empower them to thrive, not just survive.

Everyone should have the autonomy to make decisions about their bodies and sexual lives without fear of violence or discrimination. This is a fundamental human right – and one that sex workers are still fighting for.

If you're eager to join a remote-first team with diverse representation from sex worker, neurodivergent, disabled, and LGBTQIA+ communities, committed to advancing sex worker autonomy and liberation through advocacy and innovative products, read on.

What you’ll do as a Senior Systems Engineer within our Systems team:

We're a small, maturing team covering a wide surface area. This role is a genuine mix of building, maintaining, and shaping how we work, delivering hands-on improvements while helping us improve our practices as we go.

• Deliver high-quality infrastructure solutions end-to-end, with autonomy and accountability. With a small team and a broad surface area, you'll typically own your stream of work independently.
• Break down complex problems into defined streams of work, and take full ownership of delivery within scope.
• Produce reliable, maintainable systems that are well-documented and usable by others. We value good documentation and a strong team culture, and we're honest that we're still building both, so you'll help shape them.
• Monitor, maintain, and improve production systems, proactively identifying and addressing blockers.
• Collaborate deliberately where it counts, on design decisions, reviews, tricky incidents, and shared standards, while trusting each other to deliver autonomously the rest of the time.
• Provide thoughtful feedback and collaborate effectively with peers, ensuring smooth interaction within the team and across functions.
• Participate in the paid on-call rotation, responding to and escalating incidents as required.

Training and required coverage:

• Participation in the paid on-call rotation (approximately once every three weeks).
• Incident response training and escalation procedures will be provided.

Your background:

• An Infra, DevOps or Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) with demonstrated production experience with Kubernetes deployments (fully self-managed and cross-provider strongly preferred - we don’t use managed k8s).
• Proficiency with Docker Compose and Linux in production environments.
• Experience designing solutions, implementing, and maintaining IaC, networking overlays (e.g., Calico, Canal), and observability tooling (e.g., Prometheus, Datadog, OTel).
• Strong communication and documentation skills, able to clearly articulate technical decisions and trade-offs.
• Proven experience working autonomously, breaking down projects into deliverables, and producing top-notch work for others to consume.
• Proven experience collaborating within cross-functional teams in an agile environment.

Additional experience that would be great to have:

• VPN technologies (e.g., WireGuard, Tailscale).
• Databases and search (ClickHouse, Postgres, Elasticsearch, Redis/Valkey/KeyDB).
• GitOps, Flux, SMTP, DNS, analytics and error tracking (Sentry).
• Technical understanding of Bitcoin and Lightning infrastructure.
• Programming experience (e.g., Ruby, PHP).
• Observability pipelines (OteL, Vector).

Who you are:

• You excel at top-notch, autonomous delivery and take pride in producing work others can rely on. You're energised by owning your stream of work, and you know when to pull peers in versus push ahead solo.
• You are proactive, detail-oriented, and thrive in ownership of defined scopes of work.
• You value privacy and security for both users and colleagues.
• You are diligent, empathetic, and calm under pressure, comfortable with incident response.
• You seek out root causes, prioritise holistic improvements, and communicate blockers early.
• You are comfortable working with adult content and supporting marginalised communities, including sex workers, neurodivergent people, and disabled people.

In an ideal world, you would also have:

• Previous experience engaging with and a willingness to learn about marginalised communities, particularly sex workers, neurodivergent individuals, and people with disability.
• Experience in or a strong understanding of sex work.
• Experience working in both startup environments and fully remote work settings.

Why join us at Assembly Four?

At Assembly Four, you’ll be part of a team dedicated to driving meaningful change for some of the world’s most marginalised communities. You’ll be supported to do your best work in an environment that values social impact, collaboration, and personal well-being.

Here’s what’s on offer

• Flexible work: Enjoy a 4-day (32-hour) work week at 100% pay, plus time in lieu for additional hours worked.
• Competitive compensation: A salary of $172,000 + 12% super, based on your skills and experience.
• Fully remote: Work from anywhere with a remote work stipend to help set up your ideal workspace.
• Wellness benefits: Access a wellbeing stipend, mental health support, mental health first aid accreditation (for leaders), and 1-on-1 financial coaching to support your personal and professional growth.
• Generous leave: Take 4 weeks of annual leave, 4 weeks of personal/carer's leave, flexible public holidays, and unpaid leave when you need it.
• Profit share: We share our success with our team—each year, if Assembly Four is profitable, we distribute a portion of that profit to our people.

A note on diversity

At Assembly Four, we know diverse perspectives are key to fostering true innovation and business excellence. Research shows that candidates from underrepresented backgrounds may hesitate to apply if they don't meet every listed requirement, unlike other candidates.

We're committed to changing that.

If you're interested in Assembly Four, we encourage you to apply and look forward to discovering how your unique perspective can help us edge closer to delivering on our vision for change.

How to apply

Click "Apply Now" and submit your resume, and a short cover letter introducing yourself.

A note on AI: We value your original thought, please make sure your application reflects yours!

Important note: This is a permanent role open to residents of Australia and New Zealand (excluding South Australia and Tasmania). You will need to have the right to work in Australia or New Zealand to be eligible for this position.