Director, Platforms & Infrastructure - Autonomous Mission Infrastructure

Ashton Woods•Reston, VA

About The Position

Tyto Athene is a trusted leader in IT services and solutions, delivering mission-focused digital transformation that drives measurable success. Our expertise spans four core technology domains—Network Modernization, Hybrid Cloud, Cybersecurity, and Enterprise IT—empowering our clients with cutting-edge solutions tailored to their evolving needs. With over 50 years of experience, Tyto Athene proudly support Defense, Intelligence, Space, National Security, Civilian, Health, and Public Safety clients across the United States and worldwide. At Tyto Athene, we believe that success starts with our people. We foster a collaborative, innovative, and mission-driven environment where every team member plays a critical role in shaping the future of technology. Are you ready to join #TeamTyto? Tyto Athene, LLC is an Equal Opportunity Employer; all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, [sexual orientation, gender identity,] national origin, disability, status as a protected veteran, or any characteristic protected by applicable law.

Requirements

12+ years building and operating large-scale enterprise infrastructure, with a significant "tour of duty" (5+ years) in DoD, IC, or Federal mission environments.
Shipped infrastructure into production at the scale, complexity, and accreditation level the federal mission demands.
8+ years of hands-on platform engineering experience across at least two of the following: cloud and hybrid cloud architecture, network automation and SDN, Kubernetes and container orchestration, ITSM and IT operations at scale, data transport and resilient communications.
Led architecture, implementation, and operations - not just slideware.
3+ years of leadership experience integrating AI and agentic automation into infrastructure operations - autonomous incident response, AI-driven capacity management, agent-based change automation, MLOps for cleared environments, or comparable.
Understand the difference between AI-washed runbooks and genuinely autonomous infrastructure, and have shipped the latter.
5+ years operating in IL5/IL6 environments with deep fluency in cleared cloud (AWS GovCloud, Azure Government), accreditation workflows, and the realities of multi-classification operations.
Know what it takes to get a system from prototype to ATO.
Deep fluency in NIST 800-53, FedRAMP, FISMA, the CISA/DoD Zero Trust Reference Architectures, and the post-quantum cryptographic transition timeline.
Can speak to NSM-10 and CNSA 2.0 implications for federal infrastructure without referring to notes.
Build teams that ship.
Hired, developed, and retained senior platform engineers in a competitive market.
Know how to balance internal capability development with strategic vendor partnerships.

Nice To Haves

You aren't just aware that "platform engineering" and "agentic ops" are converging - you have an operationalized point of view on how, when, and why. Conference talks, public technical writing, named architectural patterns to your credit.
Active TS/SCI required for primary role function. SECRET-cleared candidates with clearable backgrounds considered with active sponsorship.
You have built or operated systems that span classification boundaries, hyperscaler boundaries, or partner-federation boundaries. You understand that the hardest infrastructure problems live at the seams.
You have begun engineering cryptographic agility into infrastructure before procurement deadlines forced it. You understand why September 2026 FIPS 140-2 sunset and the Pentagon PQC migration memo matter for every system you ship.
You still enjoy diving into lab environments - building reference implementations, validating vendor claims, breaking things to understand them. You haven't lost the engineer underneath the leader.

Responsibilities

Define and socialize the technical vision for Tyto's self-healing networks, agentic operations, and the Federation Gateway that connects multi-classification environments at machine speed. This pillar is one of three Tier 1 strategic thrusts for the company.
Collaborate directly with the Technology Acceleration Lab for Operational Needs (TALON) engineers, the Cyber pillar, and the Quantum pillar to deliver an integrated platform substrate - agentic SecOps, cleared MLOps, A2A/MCP plumbing, and PQC-native infrastructure - that productizes into reusable solution accelerators rather than one-off custom integrations.
Drive AI and agentic automation across every layer of the infrastructure stack - Kubernetes operations, observability and incident response, ITSM workflow, change management, network optimization, capacity planning. Your team should be deploying agents to operate the platform, not just to monitor it.
Act as the technical face of Tyto's platform capability for senior DoD, IC, and Federal customers. Lead high-impact whiteboarding sessions with program-of-record owners and CIO/CTO offices on autonomous infrastructure adoption.
Develop a team of multi-disciplinary engineers (AI/ML + DevOps/Cloud/Infrastructure + Software Engineering working together, not siloed) who can take an infrastructure idea from whiteboard to cleared production environment.
Own the Platforms & Infrastructure pillar within the CAIO directorate.
Own the technical roadmap for self-healing networks, agentic operations, cleared cloud and MLOps fabric, and the Federation Gateway.
Manage approximately 5-8 engineers across AI/ML, DevOps/Cloud/Infrastructure, and Software Engineering disciplines.
Provide strategic positioning and named technical thought leadership for federal platform-infrastructure pursuits.