Senior Platform Engineer

RTI International•UNAVAILABLE, UNAVAILABLE

About The Position

RTI International’s Technology Solutions team provides secure, scalable, and innovative technology platforms that support research, analytics, and business applications across the organization. The Senior Platform Engineer designs, implements, automates, and supports enterprise platform services that enable scalable, secure, and compliant application delivery. The role focuses on cloud-native infrastructure, Kubernetes, CI/CD, observability, security, and platform reliability, while working across teams to modernize technology environments and establish sustainable platform engineering practices. The engineer develops and maintains cloud-native platforms, automation capabilities, and operational standards; collaborates with internal clients and cross-functional teams; and helps ensure platforms meet operational and regulatory requirements. The role also balances service reliability and operational stability with innovation and continuous improvement.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Technology, or a related technical field and 12 years of relevant experience; a Master’s degree and 10 years; a Ph.D. and 6 years; or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
Ability to analyze complex technical systems and identify opportunities for automation, modernization, scalability, and operational improvement.
Ability to troubleshoot and resolve issues across infrastructure, platform, networking, security, and application layers.
Ability to design scalable, reliable, secure, and maintainable technology solutions supporting business and research objectives.
Ability to balance operational stability with innovation and continuous improvement.
Ability to collaborate effectively with infrastructure, cybersecurity, application development, data, research, and other cross-functional teams.
Strong verbal and written communication skills, including the ability to explain complex technical concepts to diverse audiences.
Ability to prioritize multiple initiatives and manage competing demands in a dynamic environment.
Strong analytical, problem-solving, and decision-making skills.
Commitment to operational excellence, service reliability, and customer-focused support.
Ability to work independently while contributing to cross-functional teams and organizational objectives.
Attention to detail, accuracy, and continuous learning.
Ability to obtain and maintain security clearances as required by contracts.
Demonstration of RTI Values and Lead Forward behaviors.

Nice To Haves

At least 4 years of hands-on Kubernetes experience, including cluster architecture, multi-tenancy, RBAC, scheduling, and autoscaling in AWS EKS, Azure AKS, OpenShift, or bare-metal environments.
Deep experience with cloud-native GitOps and CI/CD workflows, including multi-dependency or multi-repository GitHub Actions workflows or equivalent technologies.
Strong knowledge of Kubernetes networking, including CNI, service mesh technologies such as Istio and Traefik, ingress controllers such as ALB and Application Gateway, and Network Policy.
Strong experience with Helm and/or Kustomize for application packaging and deployment.
Experience operating storage solutions, including CSI, EFS, and NetApp Trident.
Experience with cloud-native observability technologies such as Prometheus, Grafana, and Loki.
Experience designing and operating solutions in highly regulated environments, including FISMA Low/Moderate and HIPAA.
Strong experience with containerization and modernization of legacy applications and tools.
Experience working with Layer 4 and Layer 7 load balancers and firewalls.
Experience with Kubernetes security and policy engines/controllers, including OPA or similar technologies.
Experience with OIDC and SSO authentication flows and systems such as Microsoft Entra ID, Amazon Cognito, and Keycloak.
Experience evaluating, troubleshooting, and supporting open-source applications at scale in production environments.

Responsibilities

Design, implement, and support multi-tenant cloud-native platform services using AWS and Kubernetes.
Develop and maintain Infrastructure as Code solutions using OpenTofu, Terraform, or similar technologies.
Build and support CI/CD and GitOps automation pipelines using GitHub Actions, Flux CD, Helm, and related tools.
Configure and maintain platform observability, including logging, monitoring, alerting, telemetry, and operational dashboards.
Implement and maintain platform security controls, secrets management, identity integration, and policy enforcement.
Evaluate platform performance, availability, scalability, resiliency, and cost optimization opportunities, and implement improvements.
Support onboarding, lifecycle management, modernization, and continuous improvement of single- and multi-tenant computing platforms.
Partner with internal clients on cloud solutions and platform integrations, including architecture, scope, schedule, and budget planning for business development and project operations.
Develop platform engineering standards, reference architectures, operational procedures, and technical documentation.
Collaborate with security operations, governance, infrastructure, application development, data, and research teams to meet operational and regulatory requirements.
Troubleshoot and resolve complex issues across infrastructure, platform, networking, security, and application layers.
Serve as a senior escalation point for complex cloud, platform infrastructure, and security issues.
Identify opportunities to automate, modernize, and improve complex technical systems and operational processes.
Balance operational stability and service reliability with innovation and continuous improvement initiatives.