Platform Engineer

Job Description

The Platforms Team within Enterprise Solutions and Enabling Technologies is part of the Division of Information Technology at Virginia Tech. This team builds and maintains the universitys Internal Developer Platform (IDP) enabling development teams across the institution to deploy and operate their applications with minimal friction.
The Platform Engineer will design and build platform capabilities that reduce cognitive load for application developers by abstracting infrastructure complexity. This role treats the platform as a product with internal development teams as customers and focuses on enabling self-service workflows while supporting multi-tenant environments across the university.
Members of our team will have an opportunity to learn and grow in an environment where all members of the team are expected to:
Design and build platform capabilities that enable developer self-service and improve developer experience (DevEx).
Work as part of an Agile team to estimate engineering effort plan implementation and deploy changes that meet requirements for functionality performance reliability and adherence to best practices.
Leverage public cloud services and on-premises infrastructure to build and operate multi-tenant Kubernetes platforms.
Define and maintain golden paths for common deployment patterns that platform consumers can adopt.
Solve complex technical challenges to provide high-value solutions to the university.
Create and maintain up-to-date documentation of services and provide on-call support as required.
Gather feedback from platform consumers to inform roadmap priorities.
Be self-motivated with the capacity to work independently with minimal supervision as well as in a team environment.

Required Qualifications

Masters degree in Computer Science Information Technology or a related field or a combination of education training and experience that equates to a Masters degree
Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) certification required or the ability to obtain CKA certification within one year of hire
Experience building and operating Kubernetes platforms
Experience with GitOps workflows and Infrastructure as Code (Terraform)
Experience designing CI/CD pipelines
Programming experience in Python or Bash
Understanding of networking and security principles

Preferred Qualifications

AWS or Kubernetes Application Developer Certification (CKAD or AWS Certified)
Production Kubernetes experience in enterprise environments
Experience with Flux or ArgoCD
Experience with policy-as-code (OPA/Gatekeeper Kyverno)
JavaScript/React experience for developer portal customization

Overtime Status

Exempt: Not eligible for overtime

Appointment Type

Regular

Salary Information

$81565 - $98000

Hours per week

40

Review Date

1/5/2026

Additional Information

This position is a hybrid role with three days onsite.

The successful candidate will be required to have a criminal conviction check.

About Virginia Tech

Dedicated to its mottoUt Prosim(That I May Serve) Virginia Tech pushes the boundaries of knowledge by taking a hands-on transdisciplinary approach to preparing scholars to be leaders and problem-solvers. A comprehensive land-grant institution that enhances the quality of life in Virginia and throughout the world Virginia Tech is aninclusive communitydedicated to knowledge discovery and creativity. The university offers more than 280 majors to a diverse enrollment of more than 36000 undergraduate graduate and professional students in eightundergraduate colleges aschool of medicine aveterinary medicinecollegeGraduate School andHonors College.The university has a significant presence across Virginia including Blacksburg the greater Washington D.C. area the Health Sciences and Technology Campus in Roanoke sites in Newport News and Richmond and numerousExtension officesandresearch institutes.A leading global research institution Virginia Tech conducts more than $650 million in research annually.

Virginia Tech endorses and encourages participation in professional development opportunities and university shared governance. These valuable contributions to university shared governance provide important representation and perspective along with opportunities for unique and impactful professional development.