About the job
DigitalOcean is looking for a Hardware Sustaining Engineer to help maintain and improve its hardware infrastructure in Boston. This role supports the ongoing reliability and performance of large-scale data center hardware, working closely with teams across the company to ensure smooth operations for customers worldwide.
Role Overview
This position reports to the Manager of Infra::Machines::Design. The Hardware Sustaining Engineer focuses on sustaining engineering for DigitalOcean's hardware and firmware, supporting the company's expanding data center footprint and cloud services. The role involves hands-on troubleshooting, process improvement, and collaboration with multiple technical teams.
Main Responsibilities
- Work as part of the Sustaining Engineering team within the Infra::Machines::Design organization.
- Oversee the lifecycle of server hardware, cabling, and networking equipment.
- Monitor the #machines channel and MACHINES JIRA project, ensuring issues are addressed and resolved.
- Participate in a 24/7 on-call rotation with other team members.
- Act as Tier 2 escalation for Datacenter Operations (DCOPS) and Cloud Operations (CloudOps) on hardware and firmware matters.
- Develop and maintain standards and practices for DigitalOcean hardware operations.
- Collaborate with Qualification, Firmware, Fleet Lifecycle Engineering (FLE), Foresight, and Infrastructure Services teams to troubleshoot tooling, firmware, hardware, and operational issues.
- Contribute to tooling and runbook development to improve hardware and firmware operations.
- Coordinate with Operations teams on monitoring thresholds, failure modes, and alerting processes.
- Assist in diagnosing failures and implementing preventive solutions.
- Identify and help integrate industry best practices to improve cloud infrastructure quality.

