Staff Developer Experience Engineer

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

📋 Description

• Define the architecture and roadmap for local development, repository tooling, CI/CD, build systems, and release workflows.

• Lead high-impact engineering projects that minimize manual coordination and standardize the transition from code changes to production.

• Create reusable GitLab CI/CD templates, enhance runner capabilities, streamline developer workflows, establish test gates, manage artifact promotion, develop release manifests, and create rollback paths.

• Implement sustainable practices for shared container images, optimize build performance, ensure reproducibility, and enhance scanning, signing, provenance, and supply-chain security.

• Enhance developer workflow and delivery observability by utilizing setup-time, pipeline health, release performance, and adoption metrics.

• Collaborate with Platform, Security, QA, and feature teams to ensure delivery foundations are reliable, secure, and user-friendly.

• Set standards and establish paved paths for developer workflows, build and release engineering, and approved AI-assisted development.

• Design safe agentic-development workflows that incorporate code review, testing, scanning, permissions, auditability, and security requirements.

• Transform recurring developer friction into reusable tools, templates, documentation, migration guidance, and runbooks.

• Mentor engineers, cultivate technical ownership, and elevate the engineering standards across Developer Experience and Horizon3.

• Communicate technical decisions effectively and foster alignment across Platform, Application Engineering, Data Engineering, Security, QA, Product, and Program Management.

• Engage in design reviews, operational reviews, incident response, and continuous improvement initiatives.

• Establish dependable developer workflows for Horizon3’s NodeZero autonomous penetration-testing cybersecurity platform.

⛳️ Requirements

• 8+ years of experience in Developer Experience, Developer Productivity, Build/Release Engineering, Platform Engineering, SRE, DevOps, or software engineering with significant tooling and delivery ownership.

• Extensive experience in designing and operating CI/CD systems, ideally with GitLab CI/CD and self-hosted runners.

• Familiarity with container builds, Docker or OCI images, artifact repositories, and reproducible builds.

• Strong knowledge of Kubernetes-based development or delivery workflows.

• Experience in implementing automated tests, security checks, release gates, progressive delivery, and rollback strategies.

• Proficient in Go and Python for automation, developer tooling, or platform services.

• Comprehensive understanding of software supply-chain security, dependencies, image vulnerabilities, provenance, secrets, and least privilege principles.

• Proven track record leading complex initiatives across multiple teams and driving the adoption of shared capabilities.

• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills.

• Experience mentoring engineers and influencing technical direction without relying on formal authority.

• Preferred experience with internal developer platforms, paved roads, service templates, or developer portals.

• Preferred experience with shared language/runtime base images, image signing, SBOMs, or provenance-control.

• Preferred experience with GitLab Runner fleets, CI optimization, build caching, or multi-repository release systems.

• Preferred experience with local Kubernetes, development containers, Docker Compose, Orbstack, Skaffold, ArgoCD, or GitOps.

• Preferred experience with AI-assisted or agentic engineering workflows.

• Preferred experience with OpenTelemetry, Datadog, pipeline telemetry, or developer-productivity metrics.

• Preferred experience in security-sensitive, regulated, or cybersecurity environments.

• Legally authorized to work in the United States.

• Must indicate whether employment visa sponsorship will be required.

🏝️ Benefits

• Equity package in the form of stock options for all full-time positions.

• Health, vision, and dental insurance for employees and their families.

• Flexible vacation policy.

• Generous parental leave.

• Opportunities for career development.

• An inclusive and collaborative work culture.

• Remote and hybrid work models available based on role and location.

• Occasional company onsite meetings and team collaboration.