Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Defense Unicorns is seeking a Staff Platform Engineer to join their team. This role is responsible for designing, building, and owning the runtime production environment that bridges applications to the underlying platform, driving platform architecture decisions and serving as the technical anchor between application and platform teams.
Responsibilities
- Architect and maintain scalable runtime production environments across cloud-native and containerized systems, including transforming applications into Kubernetes-friendly formats for bare-metal deployment
- Own the technical roadmap for the platform vertical, identifying gaps, planning initiatives, and aligning engineering effort to mission objectives
- Provide mentorship to engineers across the team, fostering professional development and raising the technical bar
- Identify technical overlap across projects and guide teams on leveraging each other for efficient delivery
- Work closely with Mission Managers, providing insights on engineering competency, capacity, velocity, and alignment with mission objectives
- Collaborate with product teams, providing feedback on product fit and contributing to product direction based on production usage
- Work with customers to define technical roadmaps that align to mission objectives
- Advocate for and enforce DevSecOps practices across the platform layer, including security automation, container security, and compliance
- Evaluate and select optimal methods for solving complex business problems, assessing new products and their potential impact on mission objectives
- Drive continuous improvement in CI/CD pipelines, deployment patterns, and operational tooling
Skills
- US citizenship and eligible to obtain a Secret security clearance
- Expertise in solving highly technical problems that span multiple knowledge domains
- Deep knowledge in 1-2 key technologies such as pipelines, GitOps, Kubernetes, or Go
- Demonstrated experience with Kubernetes and container-based systems
- Expert with YAML
- Proficient with security automation and familiarity with API Security, Container Security, and Cloud Security
- Proficient in architecture security design, monitoring, and performance instrumentation in complex enterprise environments
- Experience with continuous delivery, distributed architectures, everything-as-code, containerization, and cloud services
- Proficient in identifying and articulating gaps in existing processes and iterating toward better ways of working
- Proven track record of evaluating and selecting optimal methods for solving complex business problems
- Strong problem-solving skills and ability to operate independently in ambiguous environments
- Strong communication skills and ability to collaborate effectively across cross-functional teams
- Experience working on a team following an Agile framework in a remote environment
- DoD 8570 IAT II certification or ability to obtain
- Experience in Department of Defense work, specifically on a production ATO system
- Experience with Big Bang, Iron Bank, and/or C-ATO processes
- Expert in DevSecOps/DevOps and CI/CD theory and implementation
Benefits
- Medical/Dental/Vision
- Premiums are 100% Company Paid
- Health Savings Account
- Life Insurance
- Disability Insurance
- 401k Retirement Plan
- Company Stock Options
- Home Office Budget
- We offer all full-time Unicorns Flexible Time Off (FTO) plus all Federal Holidays, one week for Thanksgiving, and two weeks for Christmas and New Year’s
- Paid Parental Leave
- Reimbursement for approved trainings/subscriptions
- Conferences (travel, lodging, and fees)
Company Overview