Platform Engineer

This is a U.S. based position. All of the programs we support require U.S. citizenship to be eligible for employment. All work must be conducted within the continental U.S.

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 Platform Engineer to support our customers and join our passionate team of high-impact problem solvers.

About the role:

As a Platform Engineer, you possess fundamental experience working with hybrid infrastructure developer platforms. You will lead development efforts and support teams utilizing Kubernetes. You are a proactive problem solver with a passion for cloud technologies. This role is critical in ensuring that our cloud infrastructure supports our clients effectively while enabling the development teams to thrive.

• Support Role: Assist teams with their cloud infrastructure (AWS Commercial, GovCloud) needs, providing guidance and troubleshooting
• Design and Architecture: Contribute to the design and architecture of cloud infrastructure, focusing on provisioning and maintaining services at scale
• Rapid Prototyping: Implement proof of concepts for new capabilities to demonstrate feasibility
• Apply Best Practices: Refactor existing code bases enabling better developer experiences and decreasing operational overhead
• Stakeholder Collaboration: Work closely with clients and key stakeholders to provide strategic input, helping navigate needs and trade-offs in building resilient digital solutions

What we are looking for: 

• Minimum 3 years of relevant hands-on experience
• Experience building production services using Cloud Infrastructure Providers such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) preferred, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud
• Working experience building developer platform services and APIs that scale in production
• In-depth experience developing containerized services deployed in production on orchestration platforms such as Kubernetes, Mesos, etc.
• Experience building developer platform services and APIs that scale in production
• Deep understanding of modern microservices architectures, design patterns, resiliency techniques, and optimizations
• Experience in Identity and Access Lifecycle Management Operations and Controls
• Manage, report, and facilitate certification of access for all in-scope resources (including SaaS, AWS, Azure, CSS managed applications, tools, and systems)
• Strong problem-solving skills are essential for addressing complex technical challenges
• Solid understanding of networking concepts relevant to cloud environments.
• Proficient in Git for version control and collaboration
• Bachelor Degree in computer science, Mathematics, or equivalent technical degree; or equivalent industry experience
• Ability to obtain a Security+ within the first 90 days of employment with Raft

Highly preferred:

• Cloud Infrastructure Experience: Three years of experience building production services with cloud infrastructure such as AWS with terraform
• CI/CD Expertise: Strong experience in CI/CD practices, including writing automation scripts for deploying applications at scale. Github / Gitlab runners
• Programming Skills: Proficiency in modern programming languages such as Python3 (required). With experience with Test Driven Development (TDD) with PyTest preferred
• Infrastructure Management: Experience managing infrastructure using Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools like Terraform. Experience refactoring legacy terraform is helpful
• Database Knowledge: Familiarity with relational (PostgreSQL, MySQL) and non-relational databases (DynamoDB)
• Data Intensive Platforms: Experience building data-intensive platforms using open-source technologies
• Team Collaboration: Enjoy collaborating with teams to plan story points, sprin