Lead DevOps Architect

About us

At Trace.Space, we’re building the R&D engineering data platform for the top engineering companies designing the world’s most critical hardware/software systems—cars, planes, defense systems, space tech, semiconductors, medical devices, and more. As product complexity grows exponentially due to software proliferation and electrification, traditional tooling is no longer sufficient. Our mission is to empower engineers with a modern platform purpose-built for this new era of system development.

Backed by $6M in pre-seed and seed funding from top-tier investors, we are now looking for an exceptional Lead DevOps & Kubernetes Architect to take ownership of our platform’s infrastructure and deployment architecture as we expand into enterprise and on-premise environments.

Your role

• Lead the design and implementation of our Kubernetes-based infrastructure across cloud and on-premise environments
• Define the deployment architecture for our real-time, multi-service platform spanning WebSockets, PostgreSQL, SQS-like queues, ElasticSearch, and AI-powered microservices
• Build and maintain a secure, scalable, and observable system with best-in-class instrumentation (Prometheus, OpenTelemetry, etc.)
• Define and implement CI/CD pipelines and deployment strategies using tools like Terraform, Helm, and GitHub Actions
• Architect on-premise deployment workflows that work in air-gapped or restricted network environments
• Own infrastructure security, secrets management, TLS, RBAC, and compliance-ready configuration management
• Collaborate closely with founders and engineering leads to shape the future scalability of Trace.Space

Requirements

• Solid experience in DevOps, SRE, or Infrastructure Engineering roles designing and operating Kubernetes-based platforms
• Proven experience architecting and operating secure, scalable infrastructure for production systems with real-time, multi-service architectures
• Deep understanding of Kubernetes (Helm, Operators, Networking, Ingress, RBAC, CRDs, multi-tenant setups)
• Expertise in infrastructure-as-code with Terraform and deployment tooling like Helm
• Strong knowledge of observability stacks: Prometheus, Grafana, Loki, OpenTelemetry, Jaeger
• Experience designing CI/CD pipelines for complex backend systems (multi-service, event-driven, WebSockets)
• Experience building on-premise deployment options (including air-gapped environments)
• Ability to work independently and lead end-to-end delivery of infra projects
• Legally allowed to reside and work in the EU, UK, Ireland, Switzerland, or Norway and comfortable working remotely

Nice to have, but not required

• Experience with B2B SaaS products
• Experience developing solutions for hardware engineers
• Experience building product-led or self-serve products
• Experience deploying AI/ML workloads and model inference infrastructure

Why work with us?

• Salary: $96–114k per year
• Significant equity grant
• Remote-first work environment with flexible hours
• Ownership & transparency: We operate as a lean team with high trust and high impact—you’ll have direct influence over key technical and product decisions
• Top-tier equipment: Choose your MacBook and get everything you need to do your best work
• Home office set-up: Desk, monitor, keyboard, mouse/trackpad, and chair if needed
• In-person team gatherings every couple of months

Application process

• Submit your application, don’t forget to include links to your previous work or GitHub profile
• 30 min screening interview
• Interview with one of our founders: Janis or Mikus
• Technical interview with our founder CTO Karlis
• Task preparation and presentation (paid)
• Final decision

Join us at Trace.Space and help build the infrastructure that powers tomorrow’s most critical innovations. Let’s shape the future—together.

Agencies and consultants need NOT apply.

Cherry Ventures is an equal opportunity employer and values diversity. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, colour, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, or disability status.