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 McLean, 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 an expert in hybrid-infrastructure developer platforms. They excel in deploying Kubernetes and in the automation of platform management. The engineer will have experience developing advanced platform APIs and will be an authority on containerized applications. With leadership skills, they will mentor junior to mid-level engineers and have strong communication skills for high-level stakeholder interaction.

What we are looking for:

• 5+ years of experience creating and maintaining Kubernetes clusters via both managed services (e.g., AKS, EKS, or GKE) and/or self-managed installers (e.g., EKS-A, RKE2, or similar)
  
• 5+ years of experience leading teams building and developing containerized services deployed in production on orchestration platforms such as Kubernetes, Mesos, etc.
  
• 3+ years of experience managing network resources for Kubernetes clusters (i.e., CNI solutions, NetworkPolicies, etc.)
  
• 3+ years of experience managing and troubleshooting Kubernetes workloads at enterprise scale
  
• Experience deploying and maintaining platform services and deployment tools (e.g., Istio, Keycloak, Vault, Harbor, ArgoCD, CertManager, Grafana, Prometheus, Loki, FluentBit, FluentD)
  
• Experience configuring metrics scraping and monitoring dashboards (e.g., Prometheus and Grafana configurations)
  
• 5+ years of experience building production services using Cloud Infrastructure Providers such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud
  
• 5+ years of experience deploying, maintaining, and monitoring cloud-based compute resources (e.g., AWS EC2 and EBS, Azure Virtual Machines and premium storage, etc.)
  
• Relevant experience deploying, maintaining and monitoring cloud-based network resources (e.g., AWS VPCs, Subnets and Security Groups, Azure Virtual Networks and Network Security Groups, etc.)
  
• 5+ years of experience building developer platform services and APIs that scale in production
  
• 3+ years of experience in Identity and Access Lifecycle Management Operations and Controls
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Mathematics, or related field, or equivalent experience; Master's preferred
• Active Security+ certification or ability to obtain within 90 days; advanced certifications (e.g., CISSP, AWS Certified Solutions Architect) highly preferred

Highly preferred:

• Experience hardening Kubernetes clusters via RBAC, Audit Policies, admission controllers (e.g., OPA Gatekeeper or Kyverno), image scanning (e.g., Trivy, Sysdig, or NeuVector), NetworkPolicies, CIS benchmark, and CISA/NSA Hardening Guidance
• Experience configuring log forwarding, filtering, and aggregation (e.g., Loki, FluentBit, or FluentD)
• CI/CD experience writing automation to deploy K8s applications at scale
• Experience with relational and non-relational databases such as PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, and Elasticsearch
• Experience deploying, maintaining and monitoring on-premises compute infrastructure (e.g., blade servers, edge devices, VMware virtual machines, etc.)
• Experience with modern programming languages such as Java, Python, or Go
• Experience building data intensive platforms

Clearance Requirements:

• Active Secret security clearance

Work Type:

• Hybrid - San Antonio, TX (Hanscom AFB, MA preferred or other SIPR accessible locations)
• May require up to 10% travel
• Ability to go onsite 2-3x per week to access SIPR to include federal holidays, as needed. Relocation assistance available

Salary Range:

• $110,000 - $180,000
• 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
• Take as you need PTO + 11 paid holidays
• Education & training benefits
• Annual budget for your tech/gadgets needs
• Monthly box of yummy snacks to eat while doing meaningful work
• Remote, hybrid, and flexible work options
• Team off-site in fun places!
• 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.