Principal Platform Engineer

CivicPlus, LLC

11d•$155,100 - $241,900

About The Position

As one of CivicPlus’s most senior individual contributors, the Principal Platform Engineer shapes the company’s platform and influences the broader engineering organization’s approach to infrastructure, developer experience, and cloud maturity. The role sets technical direction for the Platform Engineering function and partners with executive leadership on decisions that affect the organization. The engineer will implement the multi-year technical vision for Platform Engineering, establish engineering standards and governance, and lead company-wide platform transformation programs. They will serve as a primary technical partner to executive engineering leaders, represent CivicPlus in external industry forums, evaluate emerging technologies, and help shape hiring standards for the Platform Engineering function. CivicPlus describes a collaborative culture supported by approachable leadership and transparent communication, where employees are encouraged to make an impact on local government and the residents it serves. The company welcomes thoughtful, responsible use of AI and automation while keeping human judgment, collaboration, and accountability central. Applicants must be authorized to work in the United States; CivicPlus cannot provide visa sponsorship.

Requirements

12 or more years of engineering experience with sustained, demonstrated impact in platform engineering, infrastructure, or cloud architecture at scale.
Deep multi-cloud mastery of AWS and Azure, including organizational- and strategy-level expertise and design of large-scale, compliance-grade architectures.
Proven track record of driving organization-wide or industry-recognized technical initiatives.
Experience advising at VP or CTO level on platform strategy.
Exceptional written and verbal communication skills for technical and executive audiences.
History of building or significantly elevating a platform engineering function.
Experience with SaaS platforms serving government or regulated industries, such as environments involving SOC 2, FedRAMP, GovRAMP, PCI-DSS, CJIS, or equivalent.
Platform engineering architecture experience, including IDPs, golden paths, and developer experience.
Organizational-level cloud governance and FinOps experience.
Security architecture experience, including zero-trust, supply chain, and compliance frameworks.
Kubernetes federation and large-scale cluster operations experience.
Knowledge of distributed systems principles.
Experience with organization-wide observability and reliability strategy.
AI-forward mindset and demonstrated ability to use AI tools to improve productivity, decision-making, and work quality.
Demonstrated ability to evaluate emerging AI tools for infrastructure automation and developer productivity.

Nice To Haves

Published technical writing, open-source contributions, or conference talks in platform or cloud engineering domains.
Background in platform strategy at a high-growth SaaS company (Series C+, IPO, or post-IPO).
Participation in an advisory board or cloud provider champion program.

Responsibilities

Implement the multi-year technical vision for Platform Engineering and translate it into executable strategy with measurable milestones.
Own engineering standards, architecture principles, and governance frameworks used across the engineering organization.
Lead company-wide platform transformation programs, such as cloud-native migration, zero-trust adoption, and developer experience reimagination.
Serve as the primary technical partner to the CTO, VP Engineering, and VP Platforms & Reliability Engineering on infrastructure and platform decisions.
Represent CivicPlus in external forums, including engineering conferences, cloud provider advisory boards, and open-source communities.
Evaluate and prototype emerging technologies for potential adoption.
Shape the hiring bar for the Platform Engineering function.
Evaluate emerging AI tools for infrastructure automation and developer productivity.