Senior Engineering Advocate (Software & Observability)

Who We Are

Join a team that puts its People First! Since 1889, First American (NYSE: FAF) has held an unwavering belief in its people. They are passionate about what they do, and we are equally passionate about fostering an environment where all feel welcome, supported, and empowered to be innovative and reach their full potential. Our inclusive, people-first culture has earned our company numerous accolades, including being named to the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For® list for nine consecutive years. We have also earned awards as a best place to work for women, diversity and LGBTQ+ employees, and have been included on more than 50 regional best places to work lists. First American will always strive to be a great place to work, for all. For more information, please visit www.careers.firstam.com.

What We Do

We are looking for a Senior Engineering Advocate (Software & Observability) to help connect software engineers with our enterprise observability platform capabilities. This person will reach the hearts and minds of developers by helping integrate & optimize our tools to monitor and analyze their systems effectively. The ideal candidate will have a passion for building relationships with engineers & developers and will provide guidance on the best use of our tools to internal application development teams. Must have strong communication & technical skills. **This is a remote position

What You’ll Do:

• Communicate with software engineers, understand their needs, and advocate for solutions that benefit both developers and the First American observability strategy.  
• Provide technical guidance/support and educate developers about observability tools and technologies.  
• Facilitate adoption of First American observability products and services. 
• Create content, write enablement documentation, create video tutorials, and contribute to messaging channels.  
• Provide guidance to software engineers on monitoring and alerting patterns for various in-house and off-the-shelf applications across the company. 
• Measure and monitor all production systems with an eye toward availability, latency, and overall system health. 
• Engage with application teams to improve and evolve systems by lobbying for changes to enhance reliability, resilience, and observability. 
• Contribute to continuous improvement initiatives for the team and customers with a goal to provide automation and enhance client service and efficiency. 
  

What You’ll Bring:

• Proactive approach, designing telemetry strategies, implementing comprehensive monitoring systems, and leveraging advanced tools to gain real-time insights and identify potential issues before they escalate. 
• In-depth knowledge and expertise in telemetry data collection, analysis, and implementation, fully understanding the intricacies of how to derive meaningful insights from different telemetry sources such as: Metrics, Events, Logs, and Traces 
• Expertise in identifying patterns, detecting anomalies, and building a holistic understanding of system behavior. 
• 5+ years of experience in software engineering, software development, and/or system operations. 
• 3+ years of experience with APM and Observability using any of the following tools: ELK Stack, AWS CloudWatch, Azure Monitor, New Relic, Splunk, Prometheus, Grafana, Sentry etc. 
• Extensive understanding of the complexities native to modern distributed systems 
• Well-versed in the challenges posed by microservices architectures, cloud-native environments, and hybrid infrastructure setups.  
• Proven ability to lead complex initiatives/projects from inception to completion. 
• Ability to perform analysis on metrics & logs to provide guidance on monitoring, alerting, dashboarding and visualization.  
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills; able to explain complex technical topics to internal and external stakeholders with ease and in remote/distributed environments. 
  

Preferred Qualifications:

• Hands-on experience with Elasticsearch including APM, Dashboarding, and Reporting. 
• Hands-on experience with DevOps practices, including using GIT & Developing CI/CD Pipelines. 
• Hands-on experience with Infrastructure as Code (Terraform preferred) 
• Hands-on experience with Monitoring & Log Aggregation technologies 
• Hands-on experience with cloud infrastructure such as AWS, Azure, or Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. 
• Opinions about dashboards, metrics, and SLO’s 
• Strong knowledge of cloud design patterns for observability monitoring, resiliency, etc. 
• Ability to understand and write code to perform various tasks related to automation & observability. 
  
  

Pay Range: $156,000 – $205,000 Annually 

This hiring range is a reasonable estimate of the base pay range for this position at the time of posting.  Pay is based on a number of factors which may include job-related knowledge, skills, experience, business requirements, and geographic location.   

What We Offer

By choice, we don’t simply accept individuality – we embrace it, we support it, and we thrive on it! Our People First Culture celebrates diversity, equity and inclusion not simply because it’s the right thing to do, but also because it’s the key to our success. We are proud to foster an authentic and inclusive workplace For All. You are free and encouraged to bring your entire, unique self to work. First American is an equal opportunity employer in every sense of the term.

Based on eligibility, First American offers a comprehensive benefits package including medical, dental, vision, 401k, PTO/paid sick leave and other great benefits like an employee stock purchase plan.