Senior Platform Engineer (FedD202)

The posting, as Defense Unicorns wrote it

EMPLOYER IS A CONTRACTOR FOR THE U.S. GOVERNMENT.

Role Description

We are seeking a talented Sr. Platform Engineer to join the Navy Delivery team. This role sits at the intersection of platform engineering, application development, DevOps, and application security. The ideal candidate will help application development teams successfully integrate, package, secure, deploy, and operate their software on the Unicorn Delivery Service (UDS) and Kubernetes-based environments.

The successful candidate will understand both sides of the application/platform boundary. They should be comfortable working with application source code, APIs, containers, CI/CD pipelines, Kubernetes resources, Helm charts, and production runtime concerns. They will collaborate directly with application teams to understand how their software is built and operated, translate those needs into repeatable deployment artifacts and processes, and identify issues across application and platform layers.

Experience developing or supporting modern web applications and APIs is particularly valuable. Current application teams use technologies including React, Vue, NGINX-hosted static assets, C#/.NET services, and Python/FastAPI services. Direct experience with every technology is not expected; we are looking for engineers who can quickly understand unfamiliar application architectures and help teams adapt them for secure, reliable deployment.

As a Platform Engineer within our organization, you will join a team of dedicated unicorns focused on advancing freedom and independence globally. Our teams work across different technical baselines depending on the engagement. Although our products primarily operate at the platform layer, delivering successful outcomes for our Heroes also requires us to work closely with application teams on CI/CD components, runner deployments and maintenance, UDS packaging, Kubernetes and Helm configuration, application observability, security controls, and process automation.

Responsibilities

You will serve as a crucial link between applications, either custom development, COTS, or OSS, and the Navy platform environment, advocating best practices and facilitating communication between application teams and platform teams.

In this position, you will be expected to

• Innovate and Solve Problems: Evaluate and weigh different methods for solving complex technical problems; identify innovative solutions.
• Demonstrate Technical Skill: Solve technical problems that span 2-3 knowledge domains, showcasing a broad understanding of diverse technological landscapes. Demonstrate expert knowledge in 1-2 key technologies such as full-stack application development, CI/CD, GitOps, Kubernetes, Tofu, AWS, Go, or others, contributing to the team's technical excellence.
• Influence the Strategic Vision: Contribute to the strategic planning that aligns technological advancements with the mission objectives.
• Exhibit strong programming skills and deep familiarity with

[…]
oudly support defense and civil agencies across the U.S. government and we work closely with the creators of leading-edge software solutions to deliver value to the mission-owner by improving the security and consumability of commercial software products.

What We Work On

• Kubernetes
• Cloud Environments (AWS/GCP and Azure)
• Infrastructure-as-code (like Terraform/Pulumi)
• Continuous Delivery and automation tooling
• GitOps
• Containers
• CNCF projects and open source products and packages
• Helm/Kustomize-Value Stream Mapping
• Building and improving security delivery
• Building Kubernetes and cloud native applications

Benefits Our Unicorns Enjoy

Health

• Medical/Dental/Vision
• Premiums are 100% Company Paid
• Health Savings Account
• Life Insurance
• Disability Insurance

Financial

• 401k Retirement Plan
• Company Stock Options
• Home Office Budget

Leave

• We offer all full-time Unicorns Flexible Time Off (FTO) plus all Federal Holidays, one week for Thanksgiving, and two weeks for Christmas and New Year’s
• Paid Parental Leave

Learning

• Reimbursement for approved trainings/subscriptions
• Conferences (travel, lodging, and fees)

Don’t have all the preferred experience or qualifications? Studies show that underrepresented groups like women and people of color are less likely to apply to jobs if they don't meet every requirement listed.

At Defense Unicorns, we're committed to diversity. If you're enthusiastic about the role but don't match every criteria, we encourage you to apply. You could be the perfect fit for this or another role! Defense Unicorns is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, national origin, veteran status, genetic information, union status and/or beliefs, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law.

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