Principal Platform Engineer

Position Overview and Role

This position is part of a dynamic team at the forefront of implementing designs to support the next generation of cyber operations. This role requires technical versatility across the stack, from backend services to infrastructure. Above all, Engineers are driven by a “Whatever It Takes” mindset—executing in an expedient and pragmatic way while keeping the mission top-of-mind and making excellent engineering decisions to deliver successful outcomes correctly and on-time.

The engineer’s job is to join a team of engineers who are passionate about solving hard problems. Their role is not to be the smartest person in the room or the best engineer on their team. Rather, their role is to help their team research and develop the best possible solutions and implement them in a sustainable and efficient way. A good engineer lifts up their team with their experience, knowledge, and attributes to develop and deliver the best possible product for Clarity's customers.

This program focuses on designing, implementing, and fielding a provisioning and procurement system, which, conducts infrastructure provider curation, enables planning, and automatically instantiates pathways as dictated by the plans. The system then cleanly decommissions infrastructure pathways upon request. After development and fielding of an acceptable MVP for the DoD customers, the program will then expand product functionality with additional capability and approaches to include both data transport and signature reduction techniques.

This position requires a TS/SCI clearance and will require a level of on-site at the government customer locations (normally 1-2 days per week).

This team will play a critical role in empowering cyber mission operators with state-of-the-art tools and infrastructure to drive mission success. This is an opportunity to work at the intersection of cutting-edge technology, security, and operational excellence, shaping the future of Offensive Cyberspace Operations (OCO) and Computer Network Operations (CNO) development and execution.

If you are passionate about optimizing developer workflows, reducing friction in secure software development, and enabling elite cyber operators, we encourage you to apply and be part of our mission-driven team.

Responsibilities:

Infrastructure Engineering

• Research and develop Kubernetes and cloud-based systems (AWS/Azure).
• Provision and manage infrastructure as code (IaC) using tools like Terraform, Crossplane, or Ansible.
• Manage specialized environments using tools like KIND to bridge the gap between development and operational deployment.
• Deploy and maintain AI workloads as appropriate to solve customer challenges.
• Identify bottlenecks and optimize specific features across the stack, from service latency to resource utilization.

Kubernetes & Workload Orchestration

• Deploy, manage, and maintain Kubernetes across development and production environments.
• Monitor and optimize workloads using Helm and Kustomize to deploy microservices at scale.
• Familiarity with network policies, load balancing, and service discovery.

DevSecOps & Automation

• Design and operate CI/CD pipelines to streamline code deployments and facilitate operational capabilities.
• Ensure infrastructure security through implementing FIPS encryption, Zero Trust principles, and robust identity management.
• Relentless Automation: Advocate for and implement robust automation to eliminate manual work and improve system reliability.

Operations & Observability

• Implement and monitor system availability and security, using Prometheus and Grafana.
• Troubleshoot and resolve production incidents to minimize downtime, relentlessly seeking automated long-term fixes.
• Manage recovery processes to ensure mission continuity.

Collaboration & Leadership

• Understand high-level operational relevancy and business objectives of the technology you are implementing
• Contribute to sprint planning, daily stand-ups, and retrospectives.
• Promote automation practices across teams to enhance agility and performance.
• Knowledge Management: Create clear documentation and stay updated on latest industry trends to keep solutions cutting-edge.

Required Qualifications:

• Mission-focused mindset with an emphasis on achieving cyber dominance to provide a technical advantage for the warfighter and others executing critical US national security objectives.
• A bias for action, ownership, and the drive to see projects through to mission completion
• Current Top Secret with SCI eligibility security clearance
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering, Computer Science, IT, or a related technical discipline. (Degree requirement can be met with four years of hands-on experience in an Engineering or similar full-time position.)
• More than 8 years of industry experience as a Platform Engineer, Full Stack Engineer or similar role
• Proficient with container orchestration using Kubernetes in production environments
• Experience with monitoring tools for Kubernetes environments, such as Prometheus
• Experience working with Helm charts for packaging applications
• Ability to collaborate as a team and execute independently
• Thrives in a high-trust/startup, adaptable team environment
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines and CI/CD GitOps based deployments
• Proficient in containerization technologies (e.g., Docker, Podman)
• Understanding of Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) tools, such as Terraform
• Expertise with both compiled and scripting languages (Go, Python, etc)

Preferred Qualifications:

• SCI eligibility with CI scope polygraph
• Expertise in the Cyber Operations
• Experience with Kubernetes operators and custom resource definitions (CRDs)
• Experience with DevSecOps practices and integrating security tools with Kubernetes
• Experience with Hardware-in-the-Loop (HITL)
• Familiarity with Agile development practices and the Scaled Agile Framework
• Familiarity with Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) utilities
• Familiarity with VPN technologies such as IPSec, OpenVPN, and Wireguard
• Familiarity with integrating with Cross Domain Solutions

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