Platform Engineering Manager

About the Role

As the Engineering Manager for the Platform Team, you will be the operational owner of the infrastructure layer that enables our company to move quickly and securely. Your team’s primary mission is to build and maintain a robust suite of shared tools and services ranging from essential database management systems (e.g., PostgreSQL) to data streaming (e.g., Apache Kafka), which serve as the backbone for our Product, Engineering, and InfraSec departments. You will report directly to the Director of Infrastructure.

Not only will you manage and mentor a team of Platform Engineers to success, but you will also define the methodology for how we support software delivery in commercial, government, and classified environments. Working cross-functionally with DevOps, AppSec, and Engineering leadership will be absolutely necessary to ensure our tooling is not just operational, but a strategic asset that drives developer efficiency and meets the highest security and compliance requirements. SREs will thank you for a job well done.

About YouYou’re an engineering leader who takes pride in enabling teams to move faster, more reliably, and more securely. You have experience managing engineers who build and maintain platforms and infrastructure services rather than simply consuming them. You bridge the gap between architecting systems, driving execution, and growing a team that owns a critical internal product.

You thrive in high-stakes environments where reliability, automation, and security are table stakes. You understand developer experience, Infrastructure as Code, and cloud/hybrid/air-gapped environments. You are comfortable translating quarterly goals into tactical plans, and you motivate your team to continuously improve the platform, deliver value, and reduce friction for other engineering groups.

What You Will Do

• Lead, mentor, and grow the team of Platform Engineers by providing direction, removing blockers, and empowering them to own core platform infrastructure and tooling.
• Partner with Cybersecurity, Product, and Engineering teams to ensure the platform supports secure, reliable, high-velocity delivery into cloud-native and air-gapped environments.
• Drive standards and frameworks for Infrastructure as Code, service onboarding, environment management, GitOps workflows, and overall platform releases.
• Ensure observability, reliability, scalability, and cost-effectiveness of the platform; continuously monitor and improve service health, developer feedback, and performance metrics.
• Own the operational aspects of the platform team: incidents, responsiveness, After-Action Reviews (AARs) / post-mortems, runbooks, and continuous improvement of operational maturity.
• Act as a key stakeholder in architecture, influencing decisions about how the platform integrates with product, engineering, and operations, and ensuring the platform meets mission needs.

What We Look For

• 5-8+ years of experience in Platform Engineering, DevOps, or Site Reliability Engineering roles, and 2+ years managing engineers (ideally infrastructure engineers).
• Strong technical depth with Kubernetes, AWS (or multi-cloud), Infrastructure as Code (Terraform / Ansible / similar) and a track record of building platforms and/or platform services.
• Strong understanding of hybrid and air-gapped environments and the challenges they present (compliance, connectivity, segmentation, secure operations).
• Demonstrated ability to partner with cross-functional teams (Product, Engineering, and Cybersecurity) and to translate high-level requirements into actionable plans.
• Skilled in setting and governing operational metrics, SLOs, incident response processes, and platform delivery measures.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills to convey technical direction and guidance across multiple time zones to both engineers and stakeholders.

Preferred Qualifications

• Ability to obtain a Top Secret with SCI eligibility.
• Expertise in GitOps best practices.
• Proficiency in Python, Go, and/or TypeScript.
• Proficiency with observability stacks (e.g., Prometheus, Loki, Grafana, Alloy, Tempo) .
• Experience in DoD / DoW, government, or other regulated environments.
• Experience with the Risk Management Framework (RMF) process (e.g. STIGs, ICD 503).
• Certifications such as CKA/CKAD, AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional, or AWS DevOps Engineer – Professional.

Note: This role requires the ability to obtain Security+ certification within 90 days of hire.

Notice to Third Party Recruitment Agencies

Please note that Onebrief does not accept unsolicited resumes from recruiters or employment agencies. In the absence of an executed Recruitment Services Agreement, there will be no obligation to any referral compensation or recruiter fee. In the event a recruiter or agency submits a resume or candidate without an agreement Onebrief explicitly reserves the right to pursue and hire those candidate(s) without any financial obligation to the recruiter or agency. Any unsolicited resumes, including those submitted to hiring managers, shall be deemed the property of Onebrief.