Systems Engineering Manager

Job Description:

POLITICO strives to be the dominant source for politics and policy in power centers across every continent where access to reliable information, nonpartisan journalism and real-time tools creates, informs, and engages a global citizenry. Our mission from the very beginning was to win the audience. We dedicate ourselves to providing accurate, non-partisan, impactful information to the right people at the right time so they can act with confidence and speed. We serve, better understand, and grow our influential audience by creating innovative products and tools that provide limitless value across the globe.

POLITICO is seeking a Systems Engineering Manager to lead a small, experienced team responsible for the reliability and performance of our cloud infrastructure. This is a hands-on leadership role, combining technical execution with team leadership to support and evolve critical systems across our US and EU environments.

You will work closely with Development, Network Engineering, and Information Security to ensure infrastructure is scalable, secure, and resilient. The role includes ownership of incident response, system stability, and vulnerability management, with a focus on driving continuous improvement across our infrastructure and operational practices.

This position requires a balance of technical depth, strategic thinking, and people leadership to successfully deliver infrastructure initiatives and support a high-performing team. Even if you don’t meet every requirement, we encourage you to apply.

What you’ll do

• Lead and mentor a small, experienced systems engineering team, providing technical direction, prioritization, and hands-on support
• Establish and enforce best practices around security, scalability, and reliability within both your team and software development teams
• Own the reliability, performance, and availability of systems infrastructure across US and EU environments
• Lead response to infrastructure incidents and drive improvements to system stability and operational processes
• Design, build, and operate cloud infrastructure and core systems supporting application workloads using AWS, Kubernetes, Terraform, and related technologies
• Drive infrastructure standardization and alignment across global teams, ensuring consistency and compliance (e.g., GDPR, data residency)
• Lead disaster recovery and business continuity planning, ensuring resilience of critical systems
• Operate and continuously improve vulnerability management and patching processes for cloud infrastructure, leveraging tools such as Wiz to prioritize and drive timely remediation of security risks

What you’ll need

• 7+ years of experience in systems engineering, infrastructure, or SRE roles
• 2+ years of experience managing or leading engineering teams
• Strong experience designing and operating production systems in AWS at scale
• Deep experience running Kubernetes in production environments
• Experience implementing infrastructure-as-code using tools such as Terraform
• Experience using observability and logging tools (e.g., Datadog, Splunk) to monitor system health, troubleshoot issues, and support incident response
• Strong understanding of reliability, scalability, and performance engineering principles
• Experience partnering with security teams to implement infrastructure security best practices
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to influence technical and non-technical stakeholders

Nice to have

• Bachelor’s degree in a technical field (Computer Science, Engineering, etc.)
• Possession of an AWS Certification
• Hands-on experience with cloud-native security tooling, including CSPM platforms and runtime threat detection
• Familiarity with content delivery networks (CDNs)
• Experience leading teams through compliance certifications (e.g., SOC 2, FedRAMP)

At POLITICO, we value integrity, collaboration, and innovation. This role offers the opportunity to work alongside top executives and contribute to a dynamic HR team. If you are an organized, motivated, and detail-driven professional who thrives in an in-office setting, we encourage you to apply.

We value our people. Click here for more on what we offer and what it’s like to work for POLITICO.

Let’s keep in touch. You can view our list of open positions here and email us careers@politico.com. We hope to see your application soon!

About Us.

POLITICO illuminates the forces shaping global power. Since 2007, we have delivered intelligence that anticipates tomorrow's headlines, not reports on yesterday's news. As politics has increasingly become the defining force of our era, our work has never been more vital.

Cabinet secretaries and Ministers start their mornings with our analysis. CEOs shape strategy around our reporting. Advocacy leaders rely on our insights to move policy. We deliver the straightforward facts and clear-eyed analysis they need to navigate the most complex political landscape of our lifetimes.

Our 1,100+ publishing professionals across the world's key democratic capitals—Washington, Brussels, London, Paris, Berlin, Sacramento, and New York—form the world's premier politics and policy newsroom. We tell the story of how power really works by explaining who wields it and how they plan to exercise it, connecting dots others miss and delivering scoops from sources others don't even know exist.

Innovation has always been a core tenet of our story. At launch, we bet that depth would trump scale, that talent would trump traffic, and that politics would become central to modern life. In 2011, we made another bet and launched POLITICO Pro to help decision-makers understand the business of government, transforming both how they shape government action and the business of journalism itself.

These bets have made POLITICO the most successful digital news startup of its generation and the indispensable resource for leaders who shape the future. Today, we are a rarity in media: a growing, profitable, and sustainable news organization.

POLITICO is a subsidiary of Axel Springer SE, a family-owned transatlantic media company headquartered in Berlin and New York. Axel Springer is dedicated to shaping the future of journalism in the free world, believing that a free and informed society is essential to democracy. The company’s guiding principles - first articulated as The Essentials by founder Axel Springer in the aftermath of World War II - remain a cornerstone of the company’s foundation today. Learn more about Axel Springer.

Posting date:

Title: