Senior Platform Engineer

Who we are:

Raft (https://TeamRaft.com) is a customer-obsessed non-traditional small business with a purposeful focus on Distributed Data Systems, Platforms at Scale, and Complex Application Development, with headquarters in Reston, VA. Our range of clients includes innovative federal and public agencies leveraging design thinking, cutting-edge tech stack, and cloud-native ecosystem. We build digital solutions that impact the lives of millions of Americans.

We're looking for an experienced Senior Platform Engineer to support our customers and join our passionate team of high-impact problem solvers.

About the role:

The Senior Platform Engineer is a senior-level Individual Contributor with extensive software engineering experience building and operating hybrid-infrastructure developer platforms across private and commercial cloud environments. The ideal candidate has demonstrated expertise deploying and managing Kubernetes in diverse configurations and automating platform management at enterprise scale. This engineer will be responsible for maintaining the underlying infrastructure and services required to host containerized applications reliably and securely. The role requires a mid to senior level engineer capable of mentoring junior developers and engineers, with strong communication skills to effectively collaborate with internal and external stakeholders across the organization.

What we are looking for:

• 5+ years of experience building and developing containerized services deployed in production on orchestration platforms such as Kubernetes, Mesos, Docker Swarm, or similar technologies.
• 5+ years of experience designing, building, and scaling developer platform services in production environments.
• 5+ years of experience architecting and deploying production services using Cloud Infrastructure Providers such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
• 3+ years of hands-on experience in Identity and Access Management (IAM), access lifecycle management operations, and security controls implementation.
• Demonstrated deep understanding of modern microservices architectures, design patterns, resiliency techniques, and performance optimizations as evidenced by resume and experience.
• Experience managing, auditing, and facilitating certification of access controls for all in-scope resources including SaaS applications, AWS, Azure, managed applications, tools, and systems.
• Proven ability to work closely with clients and key stakeholders to provide strategic technical guidance and navigate tradeoffs when building extensible, scalable digital solutions.
• 3+ years of professional development experience with modern programming languages such as Java, Python, or Go.
• Hands-on experience managing infrastructure as code and developing APIs/platform services enabling tenants to consume container services efficiently.
• Strong Linux/Unix systems administration experience.
• Collaborative team player who actively participates in agile ceremonies including story planning, sprint planning, and retrospectives.
• Practical experience with at least one agile methodology (Scrum, Kanban, or similar frameworks).
• Ability to obtain Security+ certification within the first 90 days of employment with Raft.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Mathematics, Engineering, or equivalent technical degree; or equivalent professional industry experience.

Highly preferred:

• Experience with relational and non-relational databases such as PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Elasticsearch, or Redis.
• Infrastructure as Code (IaC) experience with tools such as Terraform, Pulumi, CloudFormation, or Ansible.
• Experience with observability and monitoring platforms such as Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog, or New Relic.
• Active Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA), Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD), or Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist (CKS) certification.

Clearance Requirements:

• Able to obtain and maintain a Secret security clearance
• Active Secret or Top Secret preferred

Work Type:

• Must reside within reasonable commuting distance to one of the following locations: Hanscom AFB, MA, Langley AFB, VA or San Antonio, TX
• May require up to 15% travel

Salary Range:

• $140,000 - $185,000
• The determination of compensation is predicated upon a candidate's comprehensive experience, demonstrated skill, and proven abilities

What we will offer you:

• Highly competitive salary
• Fully covered healthcare, dental, and vision coverage
• 401(k) and company match
• Unlimited PTO + 11 paid holidays
• Education & training benefits
• Generous Referral Bonuses
• And More!

Our Vision Statement:

We bridge the gap between humans and data through radical transparency and our obsession withthemission.

Our Customer Obsession:

We will approach every deliverable like it's a product. We will adopt a customer-obsessed mentality. As we grow, and our footprint becomes larger, teams and employees will treat each other not only as teammates but customers. We must live the customer-obsessed mindset, always. This will help us scale and it will translate to the interactions that our Rafters have with their clients and other product teams that they integrate with. Our culture will enable our success and set us apart from other companies.

How do we get there?

Public-sector modernization is critical for us to live in a better world. We, at Raft, want to innovate and solve complex problems. And, if we are successful, our generation and the ones that follow us will live in a delightful, efficient, and accessible world where out-of-box thinking,and collaboration is a norm.

Raft's core philosophy isUbuntu: IAm, BecauseWe are. We support our"nadi"by elevating the other Rafters. We work as a hyper collaborative team where each team member brings a unique perspective, adding value that did not exist before. People make Raft special. We celebrate each other and our cognitive and cultural diversity. We are devoted to our practice of innovation and collaboration.