Lead Email Infrastructure Architect

Salary Range: $30k - $60k USD About Mission Inbox Mission Inbox empowers businesses to take back control of their email deliverability with an all-in-one infrastructure platform. We move fast, think outside the box, and solve problems with urgency. Our team is made up of founding engineers and driven builders — we set the bar high. The Role We need a Systems Architect who is both a builder and a strategist . You won’t just make things fit within current limitations — you will point them out, challenge them, and design ways to remove them . This is about building for scale: we are at 50M emails/month today, but we’re months away from needing to support 600M/month . This is not a hands-off role. You will design, plan, teach, and execute while working hand-in-hand with our developers and CTO. Key Responsibilities Architect, configure, and optimize email infrastructure : Dovecot (IMAP/POP3 servers) MTAs (Postfix, KumoMTA, Postal, PowerMTA or similar) Full mail server setup, scaling, and hardening Collaborate with developers — understand their code, integrate with their workflows , and guide them technically. Challenge existing systems, identify limitations, and propose structural changes to eliminate them. Build for scale — from 50M → 600M emails/month and beyond. Work with the CTO to define long-term infrastructure architecture and lead its execution. Mentor engineers, ensuring knowledge transfer and adoption of best practices. Take ownership of system reliability, scalability, and performance. Required Skills & Experience Expert-level, hands-on knowledge of: Dovecot setups (configurations, optimizations, advanced deployments). MTAs (Postfix/Exim/etc.) . End-to-end email server environments . Strong coding background (Python preferred; other languages welcome). Ability to collaborate with software engineers and speak their language. Proven experience designing and scaling production-level infrastructure . Linux systems administration mastery. A problem-challenger mindset — not just fitting into limitations but tearing them down to build better. What Success Looks Like Within 2 weeks: You’ve fully onboarded, studied our systems, and are mapping out improvements. Within 1 month: You’re delivering measurable impact (resolving infrastructure issues, identifying bottlenecks, proposing scalable solutions). Ongoing: You’re the authority for email infrastructure , driving our evolution from tens of millions to hundreds of millions of emails per month. Culture Fit Thrives in fast-paced, high-expectation environments . Sees challenges as opportunities to innovate . Direct, vocal, and committed — we value bold thinking. Treats remote work with full accountability and commitment .