Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) Intern/Co-op

Job Description

About Cisco Meraki

Cisco Meraki is a leader in cloud-managed IT, simplifying the digital workplace and connecting passionate people to their mission. The company fosters an inclusive community driven by innovative, purposeful, and vibrant individuals. Their core values of ‘care deeply,’ ‘everybody in,’ ‘simplify everything,’ and ‘be brave’ have propelled them to the forefront of cloud-managed IT leadership and have played a pivotal role in shaping a more inclusive future.

Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) Intern/Co-op Job Description

As a Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) Intern/Co-op on the Meraki SRE team, you will work on projects spanning everything from server hardware and operating systems to tools for code deployment and service monitoring. You will have the opportunity to build software and systems to monitor, scale, and deploy distributed cloud services.

Meraki’s SRE organization plays a crucial role in building and scaling the cloud that supports millions of Meraki devices worldwide. With a customer base growing by a factor of 2-3 every year, serving over 10 billion requests per day across data centers globally, Meraki customers depend on the Meraki cloud to manage their critical infrastructure of network switches, security appliances, wireless APs, security cameras, and IoT devices.

As part of a tight-knit global engineering team, you will:

• Make pivotal decisions about managing and scaling sophisticated, high-performance distributed systems.
• Contribute your perspective on cloud services and help develop innovative ways to improve infrastructure management.

Responsibilities:

• Work on projects involving server hardware, operating systems, code deployment, and service monitoring.
• Build software and systems for monitoring, scaling, and deploying distributed cloud services.
• Contribute to the team’s efforts in building and scaling the cloud infrastructure.
• Provide insights and recommendations for improving cloud service management.

Ideal Candidate Profile:

• Pursuing a technical bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience with a solid computer science foundation, OR pursuing a software/coding boot camp (or educational training program) and/or technical associate’s degree with a solid computer science foundation (completed within the last 6 months).
• Excellent communication skills.
• Proactive learner capable of quickly adapting to new frameworks, languages, and environments.
• Passionate team player.
• Eager to learn from experience and seek feedback.
• Previous internship or large-scale project experience.
• Familiarity with networking, data visualization, distributed systems, databases, container orchestration, or Ruby on Rails.
• Authorized to work in the U.S. without requiring sponsorship now or in the future.

Bonus Points:

• Experience with *nix systems (Debian and Ubuntu).
• Experience with container technologies (Docker Swarm and Kubernetes).
• Familiarity with logging and monitoring tools (Prometheus, Grafana, Logstash, ElasticSearch, OpenTelemetry, statsd, collectd).
• Experience with CI/CD tooling (Jenkins or Gitlab).

Project and Work Life:

Meraki interns and co-ops participate in 12 and 16-week programs, respectively, and are assigned to subteams. They work on a small starter project, such as tool integration and implementation, before focusing on a larger project like building infrastructure for a new service. Projects are multi-functional, allowing interns to gain experience in new languages and technologies while encouraging professional growth and a sense of ownership within the team.

Meraki’s engineering teams emphasize mentorship. Each intern/co-op is paired with a mentor who provides ongoing feedback and guidance. Mentors facilitate introductions, explain tools and processes, and ensure a smooth transition into the Meraki work environment.

Recent Intern Project Examples:

• Improving Kubernetes node lifecycle management.
• Hardening internal microservice containers for improved security and resiliency.
• Building a framework for Airflow unit tests.

Intern Benefits:

• Competitive salary.
• Customized laptop and desk setups.
• Medical, dental, and vision coverage plans.