Lead System Engineer

Social Discovery Group (SDG) is a global technology company that builds apps at the intersection of dating, social, and entertainment. The company's portfolio includes 70 social discovery platforms with a focus on AI, game mechanics, and video streaming. We actively support and invest in social discovery startups worldwide through our CVC fund.

More than 500 million people in 150 countries enjoy our products, and we strive to have ten times as many.

SDG invests in social discovery technology startups around the world. Our Investments include Open AI, Patreon, Flo, RAW, EVA AI, Clubhouse, Magnet, Woebot, Flure, Astry, Coursera, Academia, Harbour, Space, Auto1, DocSend, AppAnnie, Rapyd, Boom Supersonic, Trading, View, K-Health and many others.

We solve the problem of loneliness, isolation, and disconnection with the help of digital reality.

Our digital nomad team of more than 1200 professionals works all over the world. Together, we are solving the prevalent problem of loneliness and shaping Social Life 3.0 — a new digital reality where people will be able to fulfil their needs for communication and attention from other people and artificial life forms.

Our teams of digital nomads live and work remotely from Cyprus, Malta, the USA, Thailand, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Japan, Australia, Poland, Israel, Turkey, Latvia and many others.

We are seeking a highly skilled and experienced Lead System Engineer focused on Virtualization with expertise in VMware and Hyper-V technologies to lead and enhance our virtualization infrastructure and data center environments.

The successful candidate will play a key leadership role, responsible for the strategic oversight, design, implementation, and continuous maintenance of complex, enterprise-level systems and infrastructure. This position requires a hands-on leader who can effectively guide a team of engineers, drive technical innovation, and collaborate with cross-functional teams to align system architecture with business objectives.

Lead System Engineer ensures that all systems meet and exceed technical requirements, performance benchmarks, and stringent security protocols. Additionally, this role is crucial in proactively identifying and resolving issues, optimizing system performance, and ensuring the highest levels of availability, reliability, and scalability within the company’s IT infrastructure

Areas of responsibility:

• Troubleshooting and Issue Resolution: Efficiently diagnose and resolve technical incidents and problems to maintain smooth operations.
• Virtualization Platform Availability: Ensure the virtualization platform is highly available and performs optimally.
• Hardware Maintenance: Oversee regular maintenance and updates of server hardware and associated systems to ensure reliability and security.

Your main tasks will be:

• Lead, mentor, and guide a team of system administrators and network engineers (up to 4 persons for now), ensuring the timely and effective delivery of projects and tasks.
• Oversee system engineering projects, ensuring milestones and deadlines are met while maintaining quality and performance standards.
• Act as the technical point of contact for complex system issues, providing expert-level guidance and support to the team and stakeholders.
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives within the team, optimizing workflows, improving system performance, and integrating best practices for system engineering and operations.
• Facilitate cross-functional collaboration with other IT teams, departments, and external partners to ensure cohesive and efficient systems integration and troubleshooting.
• Manage team resources, assigning tasks based on team members' strengths, project priorities, and timelines.
• Evaluate team performance, providing constructive feedback and conducting regular assessments to ensure ongoing development and improvement.
• On-Call Escalation: Personal responsibility for managing and resolving on-call escalations is required. This includes prompt and effective handling of urgent issues, clear communication with relevant stakeholders, and ensuring follow-up actions are completed to resolve any concerns.
• Managerial and engineering tasks will be combined ~50/50.

We expect from you:

• Education: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field.
• Experience: Minimum of 5 years in a Team Lead, Lead System Engineer, or similar leadership role in system engineering.
• Technical Skills:
  - VMware Virtualization: Strong expertise in VMware virtualization technologies, including ESXi, vCenter.
  - Microsoft Virtualization: Extensive experience with Microsoft virtualization platforms, including Hyper-V and VMM, for managing large-scale virtual environments.
  - Virtual Networks: Proficient in configuring and troubleshooting virtual networks, such as VLANs, vSwitches, and network segmentation.
  - Storage Systems: In-depth knowledge of different types of storages (NAS, Block, DAS), and the core components of data storage systems, including cluster resource management.
  - Storage Area Networks (SAN): Extensive hands-on experience with SAN technologies, including configuring, managing, and troubleshooting SAN infrastructure and storage protocols such as iSCSI, Fibre Channel, and FCoE.
  - Cloud Integration: Hands-on experience in integrating VMware environments with cloud platforms like Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Amazon Web Services (AWS), or Microsoft Azure.
  - Automation & Scripting: Proficiency with automation tools and scripting languages (e.g., Python, Bash, PowerShell, PowerCLI) for automating system operations and maintenance.
  - Microsoft Stack: Strong understanding and experience with Microsoft technologies, including Active Directory (AD), DNS, DHCP, Group Policy, and other foundational components in enterprise infrastructure.

What do we offer:

• REMOTE OPPORTUNITY to work full time;
• Vacation 28 calendar days per year;
• 7 wellness days per year (time off) that can be used to deal with household issues, to lie down and recover without taking sick leave;
• Bonuses up to $5000 for recommending successful applicants for positions in the company;
• Full payment for professional training, international conferences and meetings;
• Corporate discount for English lessons;
• ​Health benefits. If you are not eligible for corporate medical insurance, the company will compensate you with up to $ 1,000 gross per year per employee, according to the paychecks. This can be spent on self-purchase of health insurance or on doctor’s fees for yourself and close relatives (spouse, children);
• ​Workplace organization. The company provides all employees with an equipped workplace and all the necessary equipment (table, armchair, wifi, etc.) in our offices or co-working locations. In the other locations, the company provides reimbursement of workplace costs up to $ 1000 gross once every 3 years, according to the paychecks. This money can be spent on the rent of the co-working room, on equipping the working place at home (desk, chair, Internet, etc.) during those 3 years;
• Internal gamified gratitude system: receive bonuses from colleagues and exchange them for time off, merch, team building activities, massage certificates, etc.

Sounds good? Join us now!