Platform Engineer - Infrastructure, College of Arts and Sciences

University of Washington Medical Center•Seattle, WA

23h•$102,000 - $110,400

About The Position

The College of Arts & Sciences (CAS) at the University of Washington is seeking an Infrastructure Automation Engineer (Platform Engineer) to help design and operate the automated platforms that support teaching, research, and administrative computing across the College. This role is ideal for an engineer who prefers building systems over maintaining them manually. You’ll focus on Infrastructure-as-Code, configuration management, and automation frameworks that make infrastructure repeatable, secure, and easy to operate at scale. You’ll work closely with operations engineers, application developers, and security staff to turn operational needs into clean, version-controlled automation. This is a team-based position that provides opportunities for cross-training and skill development across related functional areas. The role includes supporting other engineers as needed and serving as backup to ensure reliable and continuous service delivery

Requirements

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Physics, or a related field.
4–5+ of progressively responsible experience in systems administration, infrastructure operations, or cloud/platform engineering.
Demonstrated experience building and maintaining automation for server or platform environments in production settings.
Experience working collaboratively within a cross-functional IT or engineering team.
Demonstrated experience working within established IT standards, policies, and security frameworks, preferably in a higher education or research environment
Demonstrated experience working with minimal supervision, both independently and in a collaborative team environment and within deadlines.
Demonstrated client service skills and the ability to work with personnel of various levels of technical background.
Excellent written and oral communications skills.
Self-motivated, resourceful, and proactive.
Operationally minded with experience developing, implementing, and managing effective processes and systems.
Strong organizational skills and attention to detail.
Ability to exercise independent judgement and creatively solve problems.

Nice To Haves

Strong experience with configuration management and automation tools such as Puppet, Ansible, or similar.
Experience supporting Linux-based systems; familiarity with Windows environments is a plus.
Familiarity with cloud and/or virtualized infrastructure (e.g., VMware, AWS, Azure).
Proficiency with scripting languages such as Python or Bash.
Experience using Git for version control and collaborating on shared codebases.
Understanding of infrastructure security best practices, including configuration hardening and patch compliance.
Ability to design automation that balances flexibility, maintainability, and operational safety.

Responsibilities

Design, build, and maintain Infrastructure-as-Code using tools such as Puppet and Ansible.
Create reusable, version-controlled automation for provisioning and configuring on-prem and cloud resources.
Reduce configuration drift and manual work by standardizing system builds and workflows.
Ensure automation is reliable, auditable, and well documented.
Work closely with the Systems & Cloud Administrator to translate operational requirements into automated solutions.
Develop baseline configurations and automation patterns for operating systems and core services.
Support system lifecycle activities (upgrades, patching, migrations) through automation rather than manual intervention.
Identify opportunities to enable self-service and reduce operational toil.
Embed security best practices into automation, including configuration hardening and access controls.
Support compliance and audit needs by ensuring infrastructure changes are traceable and repeatable.
Improve platform reliability by eliminating ad-hoc configuration and deployment inconsistencies.
Collaborate with monitoring and security teams to ensure automated systems are observable and resilient.
Maintain clear documentation for automation frameworks, workflows, and standards.
Participate in code reviews and technical design discussions.
Stay current with emerging infrastructure automation tools and platform engineering practices.
Contribute to shared standards and continuous improvement across CAS IT.
Keep current with campus standards, technology developments and College guidelines to ensure that the highest standards of reliability and performance are met.