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 Principal Platform Engineer to support our customers and join our passionate team of high-impact problem solvers.
About the role:
The Principal Platform Engineer shall have senior software engineering experience building and operating hybrid-infrastructure developer platforms (private and commercial cloud infrastructure) at an Individual Contributor Level. A successful candidate has prior experience deploying Kubernetes in multiple ways and supporting automation of platform management at the enterprise scale. The engineer shall have experience developing platform APIs that make common software operations scalable and repeatable. The engineer will feel comfortable maintaining the underlying services required to host containerized applications. The engineer will be at least a mid to senior-level engineer capable of mentoring junior developers and engineers. The engineer will also possess effective communication skills to interact with various stakeholders, internal and external to the organization.
What we are looking for:
- Provide guidance for the design and architecture of provisioning/maintaining Kubernetes clusters at a massive scale
- Implement rapid proof of concept and pilots of new capabilities to demonstrate the feasibility of new solutions to application developers and the rest of the platform integration team
- Work closely with the client and other key stakeholders to provide strategic input and help navigate needs and tradeoffs to build extensible digital solutions
- Ideally, 5+ years' in-depth experience maintaining production-grade Kubernetes clusters with multiple teams using the clusters for development
- 5+ years' experience building production services with cloud infrastructure such as AWS (preferred, or at least last 1-2 years), Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud
- 3+ years' experience with modern programming languages such as Java, Python, or Go
- Managed infrastructure and developed APIs/platform services for tenants to use container services
- Working experience with relational and non-relational databases such as PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, and Elasticsearch
- Comfortable provisioning and debugging complex CI/CD pipelines
- Extensive experience in containerizing applications using Docker and orchestrating them on managed platforms
- Experienced in building data-intensive platforms and using open-source technologies
- Enjoy collaborating with the team to plan story points, sprint themes, etc
- Experience with at least one agile methodology, including Scrum or Kanban
- Loves to demo work to team and stakeholders
- Obtain Security+ within the first 90 days of employment with Raft
Highly preferred:
- Nice to have: Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) or Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD), or Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist (CKS)
- Nice to have: Infrastructure as Code experience, specifically using Terraform
- Nice to have: vSphere experience
Clearance Requirements:
- Active Secret security clearance
Work Type:
- Hybrid - Boston, MA preferred (or Langley, VA, Tampa. FL, Colorado Springs, CO, San Antonio, TX, Arlington, VA)
- May require up to 10% travel
Salary Range:
- $140,000 - $225,000
- 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 with the mission.
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 is Ubuntu: I Am, Because We 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.
We’re an equal opportunity employer. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran or disability status.
Top Skills
What We Do
Raft is a digital consulting firm with niche expertise in the rapid delivery of modern, user-first, scalable, and data-intensive digital solutions. We accelerate the missions of our federal partners through human-centered design (HCD) and agile development practices, bringing deep technical expertise in DevSecOps, Kubernetes management, cloud-native microservice architectures, and secure, open source delivery.
We put our people and our culture first. We work with some of the smartest, hardest working experts in their field. We owe it to them to make sure our team is free of meaningless restrictions and internal politics so they can focus on what they love, finding innovative solutions.
We build off the Open-Source and resist vendor lock in. That way you’re not paying us to reinvent the wheel, our solutions play nice with others and are always adaptable.
We know digital innovation doesn’t always operate during bank hours, so neither do we. (It's also why we don’t dress like bankers.) We aren’t afraid to go the extra mile or put in the extra time to find a solution. We get it right the first time; we won’t waste our time (and your money) trying to fix something that’s fundamentally broken. It’s kind of like making an exceptional cup of coffee, if the beans are roasted wrong, it doesn’t matter how much pumpkin spice you dump in your cup, it’s still not going to taste great.
And above all else we’re up for a challenge; it’s in our DNA. Ask us about something that’s never been done, or better yet something that can’t be done, and we’ll find a way to do it. It’s just who we are.
If you need a partner that’s looking toward the future and not the past, don’t go traditional, go Raft.
Why Work With Us
Raft partners with public agencies to solve hard complex problems that impact the lives of millions of Americans. We work hard to make it easy for humans to connect with data.
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