Principal Platform Engineer

Purple Squirrel Enterprises • Baltimore, MD

2d • Remote

About The Position

Purple Squirrel Enterprises is exclusively engaged by a high-growth health technology company to identify and hire an exceptional Principal Platform Engineer. This role involves taking primary ownership of the existing platform infrastructure, maturing practices, optimizing workflows, and scaling infrastructure. The foundation exists, and the need is for an experienced engineer to assess the environment, identify improvement opportunities, and drive solutions with agency. The role encompasses owning cloud infrastructure end-to-end, including multi-account organization setup, Infrastructure-as-Code, CI/CD pipelines, containerization, orchestration, and developer environment tooling. A key aspect is leading the technical work to elevate security and compliance posture, including HIPAA, SOC 2 Type II, and potential future work toward StateRAMP or FedRAMP. This is a remote-first, early-stage company with a lean, high-performing engineering team that values speed, high standards, and mission-driven work.

Requirements

• 7+ years of experience owning production cloud infrastructure, including direct, hands-on experience with multi-account cloud organization structures, governance policies, and cross-account access management.
• Infrastructure as Code — deep hands-on experience with AWS CDK, Terraform, Pulumi, or comparable tooling; you treat infrastructure as software — code reviewed, tested, and version controlled.
• CI/CD — proven experience designing, operating, and improving CI/CD pipelines in a production environment.
• Containerization & Orchestration — strong production experience with containers and a container orchestration platform (ECS, EKS, or Kubernetes).
• Security & Compliance — direct experience operating infrastructure under HIPAA and/or SOC 2 Type II in a production environment.
• Autonomy — a track record of owning ambiguous, high-stakes infrastructure and security problems end-to-end with minimal supervision in fast-paced startup environments.
• Communication — excellent written and verbal skills; in a remote-first environment, your ability to document infrastructure decisions and compliance controls clearly enough for both engineers and auditors is critical.
• Technical Leverage — demonstrated ability to build tools or infrastructure patterns that amplify the productivity of the broader engineering team.
• U.S. work authorization — our client is not able to provide visa sponsorship at this time.

Nice To Haves

• AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional
• AWS Certified Security – Specialty
• AWS Certified Generative AI Developer – Professional
• Experience in healthcare, fintech, or another highly regulated industry
• Experience with StateRAMP or FedRAMP
• Familiarity with full-stack web and mobile development frameworks (useful for cross-team collaboration)
• Experience with IoT or hardware-connected systems

Responsibilities

• Own and evolve the cloud infrastructure environment across a multi-account organization structure, including account boundaries, governance policies, cross-account access management, and cost and security governance.
• Extend and maintain the Infrastructure-as-Code repository, treating infrastructure changes with the same rigor as application code — reviewed, tested, and versioned.
• Own and improve CI/CD pipelines, pushing toward faster, safer, and more automated deployments across all applications.
• Own the containerization strategy and container orchestration platform — including image standards, dependency security, and day-to-day orchestration operations.
• Maintain and improve the developer environment so engineers get consistent, reproducible local environments.
• Lead the technical work to elevate compliance and security posture — maintaining and evolving controls for HIPAA and SOC 2 Type II, and leading technical readiness for StateRAMP/FedRAMP.
• Lead infrastructure-focused security work: secrets management, network security, vulnerability management, and incident response readiness.
• Partner with engineering leadership to evolve platform strategy and formalize infrastructure practices as the company scales.
• Proactively identify risk across cost, security, reliability, and audit readiness — and drive fixes to completion without being asked.
• Elevate engineering culture by setting high standards, mentoring teammates, and simplifying processes that help the team move faster.
• Ensure reliability and performance of critical systems by taking ownership of production issues and implementing sustainable fixes.

Benefits

• Competitive base compensation: Target Base salary range of $160 - $200K base (commensurate with experience)
• 100% company-paid medical coverage (base plan) via a leading national carrier
• Dental & vision coverage available
• 401(k) retirement plan
• Company-paid life, AD&D, short-term disability, and long-term disability insurance
• Lifestyle Spending Account — monthly stipend for wellness, personal use, and company swag
• Flexible PTO + company holidays
• Fully remote work environment
• Mission-driven work with real, measurable impact on the populations our client serves

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Principal
• Education Level: No Education Listed