Site Reliability Engineer

About the Role and Company

The position is based in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, at Thales, a global leader in identity management and data protection solutions that underpin digital security. Thales supports numerous sectors including banking, energy, civil aviation, defense, and cybersecurity, serving over 30,000 organizations worldwide. With over five decades of presence in Saudi Arabia, including a partnership joint venture with Saudi Arabian Military Industries (SAMI), Thales actively advances the Kingdom's Vision 2030 by localizing defense technologies, nurturing local talent, and supporting national sovereignty.

Key Responsibilities

• Implement and maintain the organization's Sovereign Cloud strategy ensuring compliance with regional regulatory and data residency standards across AWS and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) environments.
• Oversee Kubernetes clusters performing upgrades, scaling, and workload optimization efficiently.
• Manage security incident response by analyzing and resolving cloud security events, identifying vulnerabilities to mitigate risks proactively.
• Enhance cloud security posture by embedding security best practices and improving AWS cloud strategies continuously.
• Deploy security automation tools, enforce policy-driven responses, and propagate DevSecOps methodologies for secure cloud operations.
• Utilize Infrastructure as Code (Terraform) for provisioning, modifying, and securing cloud infrastructure.
• Manage CI/CD pipelines via Git/GitLab ensuring automated, safe deployments.
• Administer secrets management using HashiCorp Vault including token management, policy enforcement, and rotation of secrets.
• Diagnose complex system issues related to infrastructure, networking, containers, and application performance across distributed environments.
• Apply Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) practices by monitoring system health with Datadog, setting SLIs/SLOs, and driving reliability improvements.
• Handle 24x7 incident management using PagerDuty, conducting root cause analyses and engaging in incident, problem, and change management workflows.
• Conduct cloud security hardening, vulnerability remediation, performance tuning, and capacity planning.
• Develop automation scripts and tools using Python, Bash, Terraform, and Ansible to improve operational efficiencies and platform stability.

Required Qualifications and Skills

• A minimum of 4 to 5 years of experience in DevSecOps or Site Reliability Engineering roles.
• Proficient in managing Kubernetes clusters and related technologies.
• Practical experience working with Infrastructure as Code tools such as Terraform and version control/CI/CD platforms like Git/GitLab.
• Familiarity with HashiCorp Vault, Datadog for observability, PagerDuty for incident management, and Confluence for documentation.
• Strong foundation in cloud security concepts including Identity and Access Management (IAM), encryption, network and container security, and vulnerability management.
• Experience in incident response processes, change management procedures, and root cause analysis.
• Deep understanding of SRE principles including SLIs, SLOs, error budgets supported by scripting skills in Python or Bash.
• Solid knowledge of networking fundamentals such as TCP/IP, DNS, load balancing, firewalls, VPNs, and private endpoints, preferably in compliance-driven regulated environments.
• Capability to lead incident response efforts during major outages, coordinating diverse teams to resolution with clear documentation.
• Strong customer and business focus with efficient prioritization skills.
• Cloud certifications are considered an advantage.
• Mandatory experience with Linux, Kubernetes, Terraform, Ansible, and Google Cloud technologies.

Additional Information

Thales offers career progression opportunities rather than mere jobs. With a global workforce of 80,000 spread across 68 countries, the company fosters mobility and flexibility enabling employees to grow professionally either locally or internationally, within their expertise or new domains aligned with personal aspirations.