Senior Platform Engineer
Defense Unicorns8 hours ago
Washington, DC, USASenior
Responsibilities
- Design, implement, and improve secure CI/CD and GitOps pipelines for cloud-native software, AI models, and agentic applications.
- Automate secure build, test, promotion, deployment, and lifecycle workflows in Kubernetes and Red Hat OpenShift/OpenShift AI environments.
- Translate NIST SP 800-53 controls and RMF requirements into engineering controls, pipeline checks, policies, and automated evidence collection.
- Support the end-to-end ATO/RMF lifecycle, including control implementation, evidence generation, security artifacts, remediation tracking, and assessment preparation.
- Build automated security checks for source code, dependencies, container images, infrastructure, configurations, and deployment pipelines.
- Implement software supply-chain security practices including SBOM generation, provenance, artifact signing, vulnerability scanning, policy enforcement, and controlled artifact promotion.
- Develop repeatable Infrastructure as Code using Terraform, Pulumi, Ansible, or similar technologies.
- Configure and improve GitLab CI/CD pipelines, runners, registries, and workflows across multiple environments.
- Integrate identity, secrets management, policy enforcement, logging, monitoring, and security tooling into the engineering platform.
- Collaborate with platform, data, AI/agent, architecture, government, and commercial technology teams to resolve security, deployment, identity, networking, and integration issues.
- Create reusable security automation, compliance-as-code patterns, architecture records, technical standards, runbooks, and implementation guidance.
- Help promote software and AI capabilities across security domains and into classified or disconnected operational environments.
Requirements
- Active TS/SCI clearance is required.
- Must reside in or be local to the National Capital Region and be able to work onsite in Springfield, Virginia as required.
- Deep hands-on experience with Kubernetes and containerized application environments.
- Experience deploying and operating workloads on Red Hat OpenShift or enterprise Kubernetes platforms.
- Strong experience with GitLab CI/CD or comparable software delivery platforms.
- Strong working knowledge of NIST SP 800-53, the Risk Management Framework, and government ATO activities.
- Experience identifying and remediating software and infrastructure security risks before formal security testing.
- Experience managing Infrastructure as Code with Terraform, Pulumi, Ansible, or similar technologies.
- Strong experience with Helm, Kubernetes manifests, GitOps, and declarative configuration management.
- Experience with cloud environments such as AWS, including networking, IAM, compute, storage, and Kubernetes services.
- Strong Linux systems knowledge and troubleshooting ability across application, container, Kubernetes, network, and infrastructure layers.
- Experience with container security, vulnerability management, artifact repositories or registries, and software supply-chain controls.
- Strong scripting or programming ability using Python, Go, Bash, or similar languages.
- Ability to work autonomously and resolve complex technical and security issues with government personnel and technology vendors.
- Preferred experience includes production systems at Secret or TS/SCI levels, continuous authorization, Red Hat OpenShift AI, AI/ML infrastructure, model serving, GPU environments, MLOps, agentic AI, GitOps tooling, security and compliance tools, IAM, observability, air-gapped environments, UDS, Zarf, Pepr, Iron Bank, and DoD or Intelligence Community ATO'd systems.
Benefits
- Medical, dental, and vision coverage with premiums 100% company paid.
- Health Savings Account, life insurance, disability insurance, 401(k) retirement plan, company stock options, and home office budget.
- Flexible Time Off, federal holidays, one week for Thanksgiving, two weeks for Christmas and New Year’s, and paid parental leave.
- Reimbursement for approved trainings and subscriptions plus conference travel, lodging, and fees.
- The initial prototype environment may support a hybrid schedule, but the role requires local National Capital Region presence and increasing onsite or SCIF interaction in Springfield, Virginia as mission requirements evolve.
Tech Stack
AnsibleArgo CDAWSAzureBashGitLab CI/CDGoGoogle Cloud PlatformGrafanaHelmKubernetesOpenShiftPrometheusPythonSonarQubeTerraform
About Defense Unicorns
Defense Unicorns builds platform software and services that streamline secure, cloud-native delivery for defense and federal programs, with emphasis on DevSecOps, Kubernetes, and air‑gapped environments. It provides software and professional services under government contracts to deploy open-architecture platforms and CI/CD pipelines across classified and disconnected systems. Founded in 2021 and headquartered in Colorado Springs, the privately held company serves U.S. defense and national security agencies.