Simplesense builds, deploys, and sustains the Installation Resilience Platform that enables mission operators to rapidly adapt and respond. The Platform protects critical infrastructure from cyber attack while unlocking previously siloed information to monitor, diagnose, and improve response times to incidents. Our adversaries rapidly adopt the latest technology: we help defense users respond in kind.
Simplesense is a non-traditional defense contractor and prime on the Air Force's Installation Resilience Operations Command and Control (IROC) program, which is now expanding to five additional Air Force, Space Force, and Army installations from the one prototype installation, Tyndall Air Force Base.
Our team combines over 100 years of direct mission experience solving hard problems with 50 years technical expertise deploying DevSecOps, cybersecurity, and cloud infrastructure, giving us a deep appreciation for our customers’ mission and end users’ priorities. We build for scale, architecting and prioritizing technical work for long term sustainability.
As the Senior Platform Engineer on the Connectivity team, you will design and build the automation, tooling, and infrastructure components that enable Simplesense to securely and efficiently onboard customer facilities into our cloud-hybrid platform services. You will lead complex work across platform engineering, Linux systems, networking, and infrastructure automation to turn operational needs into scalable workflows, reusable components, and maintainable systems. In this role, you will own ambiguous technical problems within the Connectivity engineering domain, drive solutions from design through implementation, and help less experienced engineers deliver with quality and consistency.
What Success Looks Like30 Days: Ramp on existing connectivity architectures, automation tooling, lab environments, and onboarding workflows; build relationships across Connectivity Operations, Platform, and adjacent engineering teams.
60 Days: Contribute code and design improvements to active automation and infrastructure workflows; identify where provisioning, configuration, and validation can be standardized and improved; and begin shaping implementation plans for a complex workflow or tooling area.
90 Days: Independently own a tooling or automation area within Connectivity; deliver production-ready improvements that increase repeatability and reduce operational friction; mentor teammates through code reviews, design reviews, and implementation guidance.
What You’ll Do- Automation and Infrastructure-as-Code: Lead the design and implementation of reusable tooling and configuration-driven workflows that automate the lifecycle management of Connectivity infrastructure.
- Linux & Network Systems: Develop and maintain automation for Linux-based systems and network appliances, including secure configuration generation, system bootstrapping, software updates, and validation routines.
- Connectivity Workflow: Translate operational onboarding and maintenance needs into scalable technical workflows that improve delivery speed, consistency, and quality across customer environments, including provisioning, secure channel establishment, validation, monitoring, and sustainment.
- Security by Design: Build automation and infrastructure patterns that align with zero-trust principles, network segmentation requirements, access controls, and critical infrastructure security expectations.
- Technical Design & Problem Solving: Break down ambiguous infrastructure and workflow problems into clear technical designs, implementation plans, and well-scoped engineering tasks.
- Engineering Standards: Produce clear design documentation, implementation guidance, and operational handoff materials. Help reinforce strong standards for code quality, testing, and maintainability within the team’s Connectivity engineering work.
- Elevate the Team: Provide thoughtful code reviews, mentor junior and mid-level engineers, and help grow the team’s software-driven approach to Connectivity engineering.
- Experience: 5+ years of experience building infrastructure, automation, or platform engineering solutions in complex environments.
- Automation Development: Strong experience building infrastructure automation and tooling using disciplined engineering practices such as Git workflows, structured configuration data, CI/CD pipelines, testing, and code reviews.
- Linux Expertise: Strong hands-on experience with Linux operating systems, system configuration, package and service management, debugging, and scripting.
- Networking Knowledge: Solid understanding of network design, segmentation, VPNs, firewalls, encryption, and secure connectivity patterns.
- Technical Leadership: Proven ability to independently solve ambiguous technical problems within a complex platform or infrastructure domain, drive solution design through implementation, communicate tradeoffs clearly, and support the growth of less experienced engineers.
- Travel: Ability to travel quarterly for Program Management Reviews and team collaboration.
- Must be a U.S. Citizen and able to obtain a DoD NIPR network account and Common Access Card (CAC)
- Must have, or be able to obtain, a Secret Clearance
- Experience in DoW, Air Force, or Federal contractor environments
- Experience supporting OT/ICS, critical infrastructure, industrial networks, or facility-edge environments
- Certifications such as CCNP/CCIE, AWS Advanced Networking, or similar
- Familiarity with network automation tools (ex. Ansible, Cisco DevNet, open-source routing tools)
Preferred Qualifications:
- Based in the Denver, CO, San Antonio, TX, or Brooklyn, NY area.
- Experience working within DoD, Air Force, or Federal contractor environments.
- AWS Certified Solutions Architect, SysOps Administrator or equivalent technical certification.
At Simplesense, we value high-trust autonomy. We look for people who can navigate ambiguity and are driven by the mission.
- Safety & Innovation: You embed security and reliability practices into daily work to drive continuous improvement and mitigate risk.
- People & Communication: You invite vigorous debate and offer "kindly blunt" feedback, always maintaining empathy and assuming noble intent.
- Integrity & Ethics: You build trust by honoring commitments, acting ethically, and resolving conflict through direct, honest communication.
- Strategic Problem Solving: You focus on high-priority issues to create documented, and scalable solutions—avoiding shortcuts.
- Agility: You move quickly to fix small problems, learn from the past, and pivot transparently when the mission requires it.
Pay Range: $155k-$195k per year. Compensation is determined based on experience, skill level, and location. We review ranges regularly to ensure market competitiveness.
- Equity
- Medical, Life, Short-Term Disability, and AD&D insurance
- Medical travel coverage
- Dental coverage
- Vision coverage
- 401k matching
- Find Your Fit: Your journey starts here. Explore and apply to our open positions to find the right role for your skills.
- Initial Chat: A brief call with our recruiting team to learn about your background and answer your initial questions about Simplesense.
- Values & Vision: A conversation with a hiring manager to discuss how your aspirations align with our mission and goals of the team.
- Show Your Skills: Complete a technical assessment that reflects the work you’d be doing.
- Team Interview: Interview with the team to discuss your experience and see if we’re a great match.
- Final Handshake: A final conversation to ensure we’ve answered all your questions before making a decision.
- Welcome to Simplesense!
Simplesense is an equal opportunity employer committed to a policy of merit-based employment. All employment decisions—including recruitment, hiring, promotion, compensation, benefits, training, and termination—are made based on individual qualifications, performance, and business needs. We strictly prohibit discrimination or harassment of any kind on the basis of protected characteristics as recognized by federal, state, or local law. As a U.S. government contractor, Simplesense complies with all applicable equal employment opportunity laws, Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act, and the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA). If you need a reasonable accommodation to complete the application or take part in the interview process, please contact People Operations at [email protected].
Skills Required
- 5+ years in cloud operations or DevOps managing production workloads in mission-critical environments.
- Advanced proficiency in AWS (EC2, VPC, IAM).
- Experience with CloudFormation or Terraform (Infrastructure as Code).
- Experience designing and maintaining CI/CD pipelines (e.g., GitHub Actions).
- Deep understanding of VPC design, subnetting, Route53, VPN and Direct Connect, multi-account/hybrid connectivity.
- Proficiency in one or more programming languages such as Node.js, Python, or Go.
- Experience with observability stacks and tooling (Splunk, DataDog, CloudWatch) including logging, tracing, and metrics tuning.
- Willingness to travel quarterly for Product Increment planning and team meetings.
- Must be a U.S. Citizen and able to obtain a DoD NIPR network account and Common Access Card (CAC).
- Must have, or be able to obtain, a Secret security clearance.
- Demonstrated ownership and ability to drive problems to delivered solutions.
- AWS Certified Solutions Architect, SysOps Administrator, or equivalent certification.
- Experience working within DoD, Air Force, or federal contractor environments.
- Based in Denver, CO, San Antonio, TX, or Brooklyn, NY (preferred but remote US accepted).
What We Do
Simplesense builds, deploys, and sustains the Installation Resilience Platform that enables mission operators to rapidly adapt and respond. The Platform protects critical infrastructure from cyber attack while unlocking previously siloed information to monitor, diagnose, and improve response times to incidents. Our adversaries rapidly adopt the latest technology: we help defense users respond in kind.
