Senior AI Platform Ops Engineer

EchoStar•Centennial, CO

About The Position

EchoStar is seeking an experienced AI/Platform Ops Engineer to own critical platform operations and drive engineering excellence across its Databricks environment. The role leads platform reliability initiatives, architects automation solutions, and serves as a technical authority on Databricks administration, Unity Catalog governance, and CI/CD pipeline development. It also collaborates with cross-functional stakeholders to integrate Model Context Protocol (MCP) server frameworks, enabling AI agent connectivity while maintaining performance, security, and scalability across enterprise data platforms. The position leads end-to-end Databricks platform operations and workspace administration, architects automated CI/CD and workspace provisioning, drives organization-wide Unity Catalog adoption, and designs MCP server integrations. It also establishes self-service automation, operational standards, and cost optimization practices. The role requires at least five years of experience in platform engineering, DevOps, or cloud operations and at least three years of experience in specified Databricks administration, Unity Catalog, and Terraform/CI/CD areas. A bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field is required. Candidates must participate in at least one in-person interview, which may involve whiteboarding or a technical assessment. Visa sponsorship is not available.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field.
At least 5 years of experience in platform engineering, DevOps, or cloud operations roles.
At least 3 years of experience with Databricks production administration and workspace management.
At least 3 years of experience with Unity Catalog setup, metastore configuration, and access control enforcement.
At least 3 years of experience with Terraform and CI/CD automation for cloud or data platform deployments.
Deep expertise in Databricks platform administration, Delta Lake architectures, and Unity Catalog governance frameworks.
Advanced proficiency with infrastructure-as-code tools, CI/CD pipeline development, and cloud infrastructure management using Terraform, Git, and AWS.
Hands-on familiarity with MCP server integrations and MLOps practices, along with strong AI application and literacy skills.
Ability to lead incident response, conduct root cause analyses, and drive continuous improvement through blameless post-mortems.
Strong technical leadership, cross-functional collaboration, communication, and team mentoring abilities.
Willingness to participate in at least one in-person interview, potentially including live whiteboarding or a technical assessment.
Visa sponsorship is not available for this role.

Nice To Haves

Active Databricks certifications, such as Data Engineer Associate/Professional or Platform Administrator.
Background in enterprise observability solutions using Dynatrace.
Experience with Jira and Confluence for project tracking.

Responsibilities

Lead end-to-end Databricks platform operations and workspace administration to maximize reliability and performance.
Architect and implement automated CI/CD pipelines using Databricks Asset Bundles (DABs), GitHub Actions, and Terraform for workspace provisioning.
Drive organization-wide Unity Catalog adoption through metastore configurations, tagging strategies, and access policy frameworks.
Design and deploy MCP server integrations to connect enterprise data platforms with AI agent ecosystems safely.
Establish self-service automation tools and operational standards, and implement cost optimization practices.
Lead incident response, perform root cause analyses, and drive continuous improvement through blameless post-mortems.
Collaborate across functions, mentor engineering teams, and influence architecture decisions.