Senior Platform Engineer
About The Position
Defense Unicorns is seeking a Senior Platform Engineer to join its Army team. The role focuses on building and operating product-aligned platform capabilities that support how software is developed, validated, and experienced. The engineer will create and own persistent, always-on environments and integration layers across the UDS platform, including Fleet Management, Edge Management, and system-level components. These environments support internal dogfooding, UX validation, and customer demonstrations while reducing reliance on ad hoc local setups and enabling scalable, repeatable product experiences. The role addresses the time engineers currently spend setting up demonstrations and managing product environments. It will establish reliable, self-service environments and tighter system integration so engineering teams can focus on product development while improving product quality and usability. The engineer will work at the intersection of platform engineering and product development, advocating for a strong customer experience as an integrator of the product portfolio. The position is remote within the United States and requires U.S. citizenship because the employer is a contractor for the U.S. Government. Travel expectation is 25%. Compensation is $148,750–$201,250 USD, with packages based on candidate experience and national benchmarking data.
Requirements
- U.S. citizenship is required.
- Strong experience in platform engineering, DevOps, or infrastructure-focused software engineering.
- Deep familiarity with Kubernetes and container-based systems.
- Experience building and operating shared or multi-tenant environments.
- Proficiency with infrastructure as code, such as Terraform or Pulumi.
- Strong understanding of CI/CD, GitOps, and deployment pipelines.
- Experience integrating distributed systems across multiple services.
- Comfort working across application, infrastructure, and networking boundaries.
- Proficiency with Linux/Unix systems.
- Strong problem-solving skills and ability to operate independently in ambiguous environments.
- Strong communication skills and ability to collaborate across engineering, product, and UX.
- Ability to travel; stated travel expectation is 25%.
Responsibilities
- Design, build, and maintain scalable platform environments that support development, testing, and demonstrations.
- Own the reliability and usability of shared environments used across the team.
- Design and operate always-on product environments for customer demonstrations, internal use, and stakeholder access.
- Build feature-branch and preview environments to support UX and rapid feedback loops.
- Enable internal dogfooding through real, long-running deployments of UDS products.
- Integrate core system components across Fleet Management, Edge Management, OS, and related services.
- Identify and close gaps in system integration across services and infrastructure layers.
- Build and maintain infrastructure as code for reproducible environments.
- Reduce reliance on local environments by creating shared, reproducible infrastructure.
- Improve developer experience by reducing friction in environment setup and usage.
- Support pathways toward self-service demonstration and trial environments.
- Improve system reliability through continuous, real-world usage and validation.
- Partner with engineering, product, and UX teams to ensure environments reflect real user scenarios.
- Support product implementation and stakeholder access through stable, well-understood systems.
- Contribute to platform and product architecture decisions involving environments and integration.
Benefits
- Medical, dental, and vision insurance; premiums are 100% company paid.
- Health Savings Account.
- Life insurance.
- Disability insurance.
- 401(k) retirement plan.
- Company stock options.
- Home office budget.
- Flexible Time Off (FTO) for full-time employees.
- Federal holidays, one week off for Thanksgiving, and two weeks off for Christmas and New Year’s.
- Paid parental leave.
- Reimbursement for approved trainings and subscriptions.
- Conference travel, lodging, and fees.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
Education Level
No Education Listed
