Systems Engineer (SRE III) - Email Infrastructure & Automation

Groupon is a marketplace where customers discover new experiences and services everyday and local businesses thrive. To date we have worked with over a million merchant partners worldwide, connecting over 16 million customers with deals across various categories. In a world often dominated by e-commerce giants, we stand out as one of the few platforms uniquely committed to helping local businesses succeed on a performance basis.

Groupon is on a radical journey to transform our business with relentless pursuit of results. Even with thousands of employees spread across multiple continents, we still maintain a culture that inspires innovation, rewards risk-taking and celebrates success. The impact here can be immediate due to our scale and the speed of our transformation. We're a "best of both worlds" kind of company. We're big enough to have the resources and scale, but small enough that a single person has a surprising amount of autonomy and can make a meaningful impact.

We are looking for a Systems Engineer (SRE III) to join our Marketing Engineering team, focused on building and operating reliable, scalable email infrastructure and automation systems.

In this role, you will work on email delivery platforms, system infrastructure, and automation pipelines that support large-scale customer communications. You’ll collaborate closely with engineering and platform teams to ensure our systems are secure, highly available, and easy to operate.

This role is ideal for someone who enjoys working close to the infrastructure, has strong fundamentals in email systems and Linux, and values reliability, automation, and operational excellence.

🔧 Key Responsibilities

• 📮 Design, configure, and operate Mail Transfer Agents (MTAs) such as Postfix, Sendmail, or Exim, along with SMTP servers.
  
  
• 📬 Build and maintain email notification systems used by multiple services and teams.
  
  
• 🧩 Develop and manage Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using Terraform and Ansible.
  
  
• ⚙️ Automate system provisioning, configuration, and deployment using CI/CD pipelines, primarily with Jenkins.
  
  
• 🛡️ Ensure high availability, performance, and security of email and system infrastructure.
  
  
• 📊 Monitor email delivery and system health to consistently meet a 99.5% SLA.
  
  
• 🧪 Troubleshoot email delivery issues, including bounces, blocks, throttling, and reputation-related problems.
  
  
• 🔐 Implement and maintain email security best practices, including DNS, SPF, DKIM, and DMARC.
  
  
• 📘 Maintain clear documentation and runbooks for infrastructure and operational processes.
  
  
• 🚨 Participate in on-call rotations and support incident response when required.
  
  

🎯 Key Requirements

• 🎓 Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.
  
  
• 🧠 3+ years of hands-on experience in systems engineering, infrastructure, or DevOps roles.
  
  
• ✉️ Strong experience configuring and operating MTAs and SMTP-based systems.
  
  
• 🌐 Solid understanding of SMTP, DNS, TLS certificates, and email deliverability best practices.
  
  
• 🛠️ Practical experience with Ansible and Terraform for infrastructure automation.
  
  
• 🐧 Strong experience with Linux systems and shell scripting.
  
  
• 🔄 Hands-on experience with CI/CD pipelines, especially Jenkins, for build and deployment workflows.
  
  
• 🔍 Experience in troubleshooting email delivery, bouncing, blocking, and security-related issues.
  
  
• ☁️ Experience working with cloud platforms such as AWS, GCP, or Azure, including end-to-end migrations.
  
  
• 🧭 Good understanding of cloud networking, including VPCs, subnets, routing, BYOIP processes, ARIN IP management, and IP propagation to ISPs.
  
  

⭐ Nice to Have

• 📨 Experience with cloud-based email services such as KumoMTA, MTA Bird, Amazon SES, SendGrid, or Mailgun.
  
  
• 🌱 Familiarity with Git-based version control and collaborative workflows.
  
  
• 📈 Experience using monitoring and observability tools like Prometheus, Grafana, or Nagios.
  
  
• 🚀 Exposure to high-volume or large-scale email delivery systems.

What Success Looks Like

• Email infrastructure runs reliably and securely with minimal incidents.
  
  
• Email delivery consistently meets SLA and deliverability goals.
  
  
• Infrastructure is fully automated, well-documented, and easy to operate.
  
  
• Issues are diagnosed and resolved efficiently, with clear root-cause analysis.
  
  
• Teams can confidently rely on the email platform to deliver critical communications at scale.
  
  

We Are Interested In

• Engineers who take ownership of systems and care about long-term reliability.
  
  
• People who value automation over manual work.
  
  
• Candidates who communicate clearly and collaborate well across teams.
  
  
• Individuals who are curious, practical, and comfortable working in production environments.
  
  

Groupon is an AI-First Company
We’re committed to building smarter, faster, and more innovative ways of working—and AI plays a key role in how we get there. We encourage candidates to leverage AI tools during the hiring process where it adds value, and we’re always keen to hear how technology improves the way you work. If you’re passionate about AI or curious to explore how it can elevate your role—you’ll be right at home here.

Groupon’s purpose is to build strong communities through thriving small businesses. To learn more about the world’s largest local e-commerce marketplace, click here. You can also find out more about us in the latest Groupon news as well as learning about our DEI approach. If all of this sounds like something that’s a great fit for you, then click apply and join us on a mission to become the ultimate destination for local experiences and services.

Beware of Recruitment Fraud: Groupon follows a merit-based recruitment process without charging job seekers any fees. We've noticed an increase in recruitment fraud, including fake job postings and fraudulent interviews and job offers aimed at stealing personal information or money. Be cautious of individuals falsely representing Groupon's Talent Acquisition team with fake job offers. If you encounter any suspicious job offers or interview calls demanding money, recognize these as scams. Groupon is not responsible for losses from such dealings. For legitimate job openings (and a sneak peek into life at Groupon), always check our official career website at Groupon Careers