Staff Platform Engineer, Platform Development

Simplesense is a non-traditional defense contractor focused on keeping military installations mission-ready by building resilient infrastructure. The Staff Platform Engineer will own the technical strategy and delivery of the operational platform, ensuring its resilience, security, and readiness for critical infrastructure decision-making.

Responsibilities:

• Serve as a technical owner for the success of platform development projects, from initial concept evaluation and design to final delivery and maintenance. Responsibilities will span new feature development and integration, cloud network architecture updates and implementation of performance and reliability improvements
• Work closely with cross-functional Development, Product, and Operations teams, as well as external vendors, to ensure the platform meets stability, security, and scalability requirements on operational timelines
• Work with Engineering and Product leadership to ensure clear, actionable and achievable plans that span the organization
• Lead planning sessions, create design documents, and make high-level technical decisions for core platform components (e.g., infrastructure-as-code, deployment pipelines, operational reliability, security controls, and disaster recovery planning)
• Elevate the entire team by establishing best practices, conducting insightful code reviews, and unblocking teammates who are stuck, prioritizing the team's output over individual coding tasks
• Provide hands-on technical contributions for the most critical or demanding parts of the project, setting the technical pattern and standard for others, with a healthy time allocation of approximately 60% on solving technical problems (coding, design, reviews)
• Dedicate time (approx. 40%) to planning, cross-team communication, defining scope with Product Owners, breaking down work, and identifying/fixing process issues (e.g., CI/CD pipelines, testing standards for platform components)

Requirements:

• 7–15 years of professional experience in building and delivering scalable, secure, and reliable systems and cloud services
• Deep expertise with AWS systems and networking (e.g., EC2, SSM, VPCs, Route53, transit gateways), infrastructure automation (Terraform or CloudFormation), and proficiency in NodeJS or Python
• Demonstrated understanding of replatforming or rehosting services within AWS environments, and proven experience at a Staff/Principal level navigating technical ambiguity to lead large-scale cross-functional efforts
• Ability to travel for a full week quarterly for team planning and client Program Management Reviews (PMRs)
• Must be a U.S. Citizen and capable of obtaining a DoD NIPR network account and Common Access Card (CAC). Must also hold or be willing to obtain a security-relevant certification (e.g., CompTIA Security+, Cloud+)
• Must have, or be able to obtain, a DoD Secret Clearance
• Strongly prefer candidates residing in the Denver, CO, San Antonio, TX, or Brooklyn, NY metro areas (with a special emphasis on Denver, CO)
• Prior experience working within DoD, Air Force, Space Force, operational intelligence, industrial technology, or fast-paced Federal contractor/dual-use startup environments
• Relevant technical certifications, such as AWS Certified Solutions Architect or AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
• Experience with Windows domain environments and observability/monitoring tools (e.g., Splunk, Datadog)