Principal Platform Engineer

Altana•Brooklyn, NY

22h•$250,000 - $295,000

About The Position

Altana is seeking a Principal Platform Engineer to serve as the technical authority for the platform supporting its products. This senior individual-contributor role reports to the Senior Director of Platform Engineering and shapes architecture across organizational boundaries. The platform spans AWS and Azure, a multi-tenant commercial platform, accredited environments such as FedRAMP and IRAP, and dedicated sovereign deployments for national customers. The role sets platform direction, influences how product teams deliver, supports customer onboarding, and helps manage infrastructure costs. It is a permanent member of the Platform Engineering leadership team and a technical resource for engineers throughout the company. The Principal Platform Engineer owns the platform reference architecture and establishes patterns for engineering teams across cloud providers and commercial, regulated, and sovereign environments. The role translates company strategy into technical strategy, leads architecture for shared platform concerns, and designs repeatable provisioning for environments and tenants. It establishes standards for infrastructure as code, GitOps, Kubernetes configuration, and release engineering, using RFCs, design reviews, and reference implementations to drive adoption. The position also facilitates technical alignment and delivery-quality discussions, partners with product, implementation, finance, security, and compliance stakeholders, and prototypes complex platform components. It mentors engineers, participates in hiring, and represents Altana's technical work with customers, partners, and the wider industry. The role may be fully remote within the United States or based at Altana's Brooklyn, NY or Washington, DC hubs, with hybrid flexibility. The US salary range is $250,000–$295,000. Competitive equity grants are included in the majority of full-time offers, and the company offers either a discretionary bonus or a variable compensation plan depending on the role. Full-time benefits include flexible time off; paid parental leave; medical, dental, and vision coverage; life, short- and long-term disability, and AD&D insurance; a 401(k) program; commuter benefits; wellness access; pet insurance; an Employee Assistance Program; and Dependent Care FSA access.

Requirements

10+ years building and operating cloud infrastructure and platforms, including experience as the recognized technical authority for a platform used by other engineering teams.
Background in SRE or platform engineering, with ownership of systems that other engineers build on top of.
Production experience building and operating environments in AWS and/or Azure at multi-account, multi-environment scale.
Strong infrastructure-as-code skills with Terraform, OpenTofu, or similar tools.
Deep Kubernetes experience, including cluster management, multi-cluster operations, and platform abstractions built on top of Kubernetes.
Hands-on production experience using GitOps as a deployment model, with ArgoCD, Flux, or an equivalent tool.
Hands-on experience with AI-assisted development and agentic coding tools, and a considered perspective on their appropriate use in engineering workflows.
Working understanding of how regulatory and accreditation constraints shape architecture, including environments where continuous delivery does not apply.
Programming ability in Python, Go, or similar languages; continues to write code.
Track record of architecture adopted across teams outside the candidate's ownership through influence rather than authority.
Ability to take a long-term view and connect technical decisions to cost, delivery, and product outcomes.
Excellent written communication; uses design documents and RFCs effectively.
Self-directed, with sound judgment about which problems merit attention.
BS or MS degree in Computer Science, or equivalent experience.

Responsibilities

Drive technical decisions and systems architecture across multiple organizations, contribute through existing company-wide design forums, and propose new forums when needed.
Own the platform reference architecture across AWS and Azure and across commercial, regulated, and sovereign environments; define patterns for engineering teams.
Translate company strategy into area-level technical strategy, align it with customer and product outcomes, and communicate options and tradeoffs to leadership.
Lead architecture for cross-cutting platform concerns, including ingress and API gateway, authentication and authorization, SSO and RBAC, service-to-service communication, and related conventions.
Design repeatable provisioning for new environments and tenants, including regions, accredited environments, and customer tenants.
Set standards for infrastructure as code, GitOps, Kubernetes configuration, and release engineering; determine where AI-assisted development tooling belongs and drive adoption through RFCs, design reviews, and reference implementations.
Create and run forums that align senior engineers, including design review, and establish rhythms for tracking delivery and quality across the area.
Partner with product, implementation, and finance stakeholders to validate approaches, costs, and implementation options before commitments are made.
Write and prototype complex platform components, including greenfield components and proofs of concept that de-risk technical directions.
Partner with Security and Compliance to make accreditation requirements part of the platform design rather than a per-environment effort.
Mentor, pair with, and review engineers to develop their skills and raise the technical bar toward staff- and principal-level work.
Interview candidates and help hire, including at senior and leadership levels; represent Altana's technical work with customers, partners, and the wider industry.

Benefits

Flexible Time Off (FTO) policy.
Paid parental leave: 14 weeks for non-birthing, adoptive, and foster parents and up to 26 weeks for birthing parents, paid at 100% of base salary.
Medical, vision, and dental benefits with employer contributions.
High-deductible health plan paid in full by the employer for employees, plus an employer contribution to a Health Savings Account.
Flexible Spending Account option.
Life, short- and long-term disability, and AD&D insurance coverage at no cost to employees.
Guideline 401(k) retirement savings program.
Commuter benefits for public transit or parking.
Free premium Calm subscription for meditation, sleep, and mindfulness.
Pet insurance and a pet veterinary service and telehealth discount plan.
Employee Assistance Program with confidential personal support.
Dependent Care FSA.
Competitive equity grants included in the majority of full-time offers.
Discretionary bonus or variable compensation plan, depending on the role.