Principal Platform Engineer

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in United States.

📋 Description

• Develop and implement a multi-year technical vision for Platform Engineering, converting it into a strategic plan with measurable milestones.

• Take ownership of engineering standards, architectural principles, and governance frameworks utilized by all engineering personnel.

• Spearhead organization-wide platform transformation initiatives, encompassing cloud-native migration, adoption of zero-trust principles, and reimagining the developer experience.

• Act as the main technical advisor to the CTO, VP of Engineering, and VP of Platforms & Reliability Engineering regarding infrastructure and platform-related decisions.

• Represent CivicPlus at engineering conferences, advisory boards for cloud providers, and within open-source communities.

• Assess and prototype new technologies for possible incorporation.

• Define the hiring criteria for the entire Platform Engineering team.

• Impact infrastructure, developer experience, and cloud advancement throughout the wider engineering organization.

⛳️ Requirements

• Over 12 years of engineering experience with a proven record of significant impact in platform engineering, infrastructure, or large-scale cloud architecture.

• Extensive expertise in multi-cloud environments (AWS and Azure), including the design of large-scale, compliance-grade architectures.

• Established history of leading organization-wide or industry-recognized technical initiatives.

• Experience providing strategic guidance at the VP or CTO level for platform initiatives.

• Excellent communication skills, both technical and executive-level, in written and verbal formats.

• Proven track record of building or significantly enhancing a platform engineering function.

• Contributions to published technical writings, open-source projects, or presentations at conferences in the fields of platform or cloud engineering.

• Familiarity with SaaS platforms catering to government or regulated sectors (e.g., SOC 2, FedRAMP, GovRAMP, PCI-DSS, CJIS, or similar).

• Experience in platform strategy within a high-growth SaaS company (Series C+, IPO, or post-IPO).

• Participation in advisory boards or cloud provider champion programs.

• Mastery in multi-cloud strategies (AWS + Azure) at an organizational level.

• Knowledge of platform engineering architecture (IDP, golden paths, developer experience).

• Understanding of cloud governance and FinOps (organizational-level initiatives).

• Expertise in security architecture (zero-trust, supply chain, compliance frameworks).

• Experience with Kubernetes federation and large-scale cluster management.

• Strong grasp of distributed systems principles.

• Development of organization-wide observability and reliability strategies.

• An AI-forward perspective with a proven ability to utilize AI tools to enhance productivity, decision-making, and work quality.

• Demonstrated capability to assess emerging AI tools for infrastructure automation and developer efficiency.

• Candidates must have authorization to work in the US.

• CivicPlus is currently unable to offer visa sponsorship, either now or in the future.

🏝️ Benefits

• Comprehensive health insurance.

• Dental insurance.

• Vision insurance.

• Flexible Time Off.

• 401(k) plan.