Site Reliability Engineering Manager - Job Opportunity at Google

Sydney, Australia
Full-time
Senior
Posted: July 14, 2025
On-site
AUD 180,000 - 220,000 per year (USD 120,000 - 150,000), reflecting Google's premium compensation structure for senior engineering management roles in Sydney's competitive tech market

Benefits

Equal opportunity workplace with strong diversity and inclusion programs that foster innovation and career growth in a global technology leader
Comprehensive accommodation support for employees with disabilities or special needs, demonstrating commitment to accessibility
Indigenous employee support programs including reconciliation initiatives that create culturally inclusive work environments
Access to cutting-edge technology infrastructure and platforms that provide unparalleled learning opportunities in large-scale systems
Blame-free work environment that encourages risk-taking and innovation, crucial for professional development in high-stakes technical roles
Self-direction opportunities on meaningful projects that directly impact billions of users worldwide
Comprehensive mentorship and learning programs supported by Google's extensive internal resources and engineering expertise

Key Responsibilities

Lead and develop high-performing teams of Software and Systems Engineers while maintaining accountability for critical system uptime that directly impacts Google's global user base and revenue streams
Own end-to-end availability and performance optimization of mission-critical services, implementing automation strategies that prevent recurring issues and reduce operational overhead
Drive technical excellence through hands-on leadership and mentorship, establishing engineering credibility that influences architectural decisions across Google's infrastructure
Orchestrate global on-call operations using follow-the-sun models, ensuring 24/7 service reliability across multiple continents and time zones
Design and implement software solutions that enhance availability, scalability, latency, and efficiency of Google's core services, directly contributing to competitive advantage and user satisfaction

Requirements

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, a related field, or equivalent practical experience

Experience

8 years of experience with software development in one or more programming languages, 3 years of experience designing, analyzing, and troubleshooting distributed systems, 3 years of experience managing people or teams, 3 years of experience leading projects

Required Skills

Software development in one or more programming languages Designing, analyzing, and troubleshooting distributed systems Managing people or teams Leading projects Coding Algorithms Complexity analysis Large-scale system design
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Sauge AI Market Intelligence

Industry Trends

The Site Reliability Engineering discipline continues to evolve as organizations increasingly adopt cloud-native architectures and microservices, requiring managers who can bridge traditional operations with modern software engineering practices. The role has become more strategic as companies realize that reliability directly impacts user experience and business revenue. AI and machine learning integration into SRE practices is accelerating, with intelligent monitoring, predictive failure analysis, and automated remediation becoming standard expectations. SRE managers must now understand how to implement and oversee these advanced technologies. The shift toward platform engineering and developer experience optimization is creating new responsibilities for SRE managers, who must now focus on building internal platforms that enable development teams to deploy and manage applications more efficiently. Global distributed systems management is becoming increasingly complex with multi-cloud and edge computing deployments, requiring SRE managers to have expertise in managing services across diverse geographical regions and infrastructure providers.

Role Significance

Typically managing 6-12 engineers across multiple time zones, with responsibility for coordination between software engineers, systems engineers, and potentially multiple specialized sub-teams focused on different service areas or geographical regions.
This is a senior-level management position requiring significant technical depth combined with people leadership skills. The role sits at the intersection of engineering excellence and business impact, requiring someone who can influence technical strategy while managing complex team dynamics in a high-pressure environment.

Key Projects

Leading major infrastructure modernization initiatives that affect millions of users Implementing comprehensive automation strategies that reduce manual operational overhead by 60-80% Designing and executing disaster recovery and business continuity plans for critical services Establishing SLI/SLO frameworks and error budget policies that balance reliability with feature development velocity Driving cross-functional collaboration projects that improve overall engineering productivity and system observability

Success Factors

Deep technical expertise in distributed systems combined with strong people management skills, enabling effective leadership of highly skilled engineering teams while maintaining hands-on technical credibility Excellent communication and stakeholder management abilities to translate complex technical concepts into business impact and coordinate across multiple teams and time zones Strong problem-solving and incident management capabilities, including the ability to remain calm under pressure and make critical decisions during high-severity outages Strategic thinking and planning skills to balance short-term operational needs with long-term infrastructure investments and technical debt management Cultural leadership and team building expertise to foster Google's blame-free, learning-oriented engineering culture while maintaining high performance standards

Market Demand

Very High - SRE management roles are in extremely high demand as organizations prioritize system reliability and scalability, with Google-level experience commanding premium positioning in the market

Important Skills

Critical Skills

Distributed systems expertise is absolutely essential as Google's infrastructure spans globally distributed data centers with complex interdependencies. Understanding concepts like consensus algorithms, data consistency, and fault tolerance is crucial for maintaining service reliability at scale. People management and leadership skills are critical for success in this role, as technical excellence alone is insufficient. The ability to mentor engineers, make strategic decisions, and foster team culture directly impacts both team performance and service reliability. Programming and automation capabilities are fundamental to the SRE philosophy of eliminating manual work through code. Strong software development skills enable the creation of tools and systems that improve operational efficiency and reduce human error. Incident management and problem-solving expertise is vital for handling high-severity outages that can impact millions of users. The ability to coordinate response efforts, analyze complex failures, and implement preventive measures is essential for maintaining Google's reliability standards.

Beneficial Skills

Machine learning and AI familiarity becomes increasingly valuable as these technologies are integrated into monitoring, alerting, and automated remediation systems, enabling more intelligent and proactive infrastructure management Cloud platform expertise across multiple providers helps in understanding modern infrastructure patterns and best practices that can be applied to Google's internal systems and customer-facing cloud services Security and compliance knowledge is increasingly important as SRE teams take on more responsibility for ensuring that reliability practices align with security requirements and regulatory standards Product management and business acumen skills help SRE managers better understand how technical decisions impact user experience and business outcomes, enabling more strategic prioritization of reliability investments

Unique Aspects

Direct impact on infrastructure serving billions of users worldwide, providing unparalleled experience in large-scale system management that few other companies can offer
Access to Google's proprietary technologies and internal tools that represent the cutting edge of distributed systems engineering and site reliability practices
Opportunity to work with some of the world's most talented engineers and contribute to open-source projects that influence industry standards
Exposure to unique technical challenges that exist only at Google's scale, including novel approaches to automation, monitoring, and incident response
Integration with Google's broader engineering culture and access to internal research and development initiatives that shape the future of technology

Career Growth

2-4 years for progression to senior management roles, with potential for director-level positions within 5-7 years given Google's scale and growth opportunities

Potential Next Roles

Senior SRE Manager or Director of Site Reliability Engineering, overseeing multiple SRE teams and broader infrastructure strategy Engineering Director roles in related areas such as Infrastructure, Platform Engineering, or Cloud Operations Technical Program Manager for large-scale infrastructure initiatives or Chief Technology Officer roles at smaller organizations Principal or Distinguished Engineer positions focusing on distributed systems architecture and reliability engineering

Company Overview

Google

Google is the world's leading technology company, operating at unprecedented scale with services that impact billions of users globally. The company's technical infrastructure represents one of the most complex and sophisticated engineering challenges in the industry, requiring cutting-edge approaches to reliability, scalability, and performance optimization.

Dominant market leader in search, advertising, and cloud technologies, with a reputation for engineering excellence and innovation that attracts top-tier talent worldwide. Google's technical standards and practices often become industry benchmarks.
Google's Sydney office serves as a major Asia-Pacific hub, supporting critical services for the region while contributing to global infrastructure initiatives. The location offers significant growth opportunities and exposure to diverse market challenges.
Known for its engineering-first culture that emphasizes intellectual curiosity, data-driven decision making, and innovative problem-solving. The company provides extensive resources for professional development and encourages employees to work on challenging, meaningful projects with global impact.
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