Principal Platform Engineer

Job Description

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 ( 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 Reston, 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:

As a Principal Platform Engineer, you'll be embedded on a fast-paced, hybrid team working to architect, design, improve, and address wide-ranging platform requirements for our government client. Your team works around the globe, but you'll be working regular office hours, onsite only 3 days a week (Tues/Wed/Thurs) from your office at Langley AFB, VA, and remote Mon/Fri. You'll be expected to hit the ground running to join your teammates in providing strategic input and hands-on solving problems with the client's platform that supports critical applications used by military decisionmakers!

What we are looking for:

Hands-on 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)

5+ 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

3+ years' experience in identity and access lifecycle management operations and controls

Obtain Security+ within the first 90 days of employment with Raft

Highly preferred:

Deep understanding and passion for architecting modern microservices and developing design patterns, resiliency techniques, and optimizations

Previous experience with relational and non-relational databases such as PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, and Elasticsearch

Experienced building data intensive platforms and using open-source technologies

Enjoy collaborating with team to plan story points, sprint themes, etc.

Experience working in airgapped environment (secure vault)

CompTIA Security+ certification

Clearance Requirements:

Active Secret security clearance

Work Type:

Hybrid (Langley AFB, 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.