Staff Platform Engineer, Platform Development

Simplesense builds deploys and sustains the Installation Resilience Platform that enables mission operators to rapidly adapt and respond. The Platform protects critical infrastructure from cyber attack while unlocking previously siloed information to monitor diagnose and improve response times to incidents. Our adversaries rapidly adopt the latest technology: we help defense users respond in kind.

Simplesense is a non-traditional defense contractor and prime on the Air Forces Installation Resilience Operations Command and Control (IROC) program which is now expanding to five additional Air Force Space Force and Army installations from the one prototype installation Tyndall Air Force Base.

Our team combines over 100 years of direct mission experience solving hard problems with 50 years technical expertise deploying DevSecOps cybersecurity and cloud infrastructure giving us a deep appreciation for our customers mission and end users priorities. We build for scale architecting and prioritizing technical work for long term sustainability.

Staff Platform Engineer Platform Development

Location: Denver CO (Hybrid) San Antonio TX (Hybrid) Brooklyn NY or Remote (US Based)

About the Role

As a Staff Platform Engineer you will play a critical role in owning the technical strategy architecture and delivery of the operational platform. Simplesense enables rapid decision-making and data visualization for critical infrastructure through a combination of on-premise and cloud services. The Platform Team has primary responsibility for cloud infrastructure application hosting user access and authorization and security tooling among other features. You will oversee the end-to-end success of core platform componentsfrom cloud network architecture to performance and reliabilityand partner closely with the Product and Operations teams to remove ambiguity and ensure our platform remains resilient secure and ready for the mission.

Work Model: We prioritize candidates in the Denver CO San Antonio TX and Brooklyn NY area but are open to remote talent.

Locals: 2 days/week onsite.

Remote: Quarterly travel for team meetings.

What Success Looks Like:

30 Days: Onboard audit current platform workflows and establish relationships with cross-functional Product and Engineering leads.

60 Days: Provide technical contributions to existing projects and develop a full understanding of the existing and planned platform development efforts.

90 Days: Identify opportunities to improve reliability performance security and/or development workflows and take a technical leadership role in forming the Platform technical roadmap.

What Youll Do

• End-to-End Technical Ownership: 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.
• Internal and External Collaboration: 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.
• Technical Leadership: Work with Engineering and Product leadership to ensure clear actionable and achievable plans that span the organization.
• System Design & Architecture: 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).
• Force Multiplier & Mentorship: Elevate the entire team by establishing best practices conducting insightful code reviews and unblocking teammates who are stuck prioritizing the teams output over individual coding tasks.
• Technical Contributor: 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).
• Team & Process Improvement: 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).

What You Bring

Required Qualifications:

Experience: 715 years of professional experience building and delivering scalable secure and reliable systems and cloud services.

Technical Skill:

• Deep expertise in AWS systems resources and best practices (ex: EC2 SSM databases scaling strategies resilient architectures)
• Experience with AWS Cloudformation infrastructure automation (Terraform or CloudFormation) cloud networking and proficiency in NodeJS or Python.
• AWS cloud networking experience (ex: VPCs subnets Route53 transit gateways network firewalls)
• Experience replatforming or rehosting services and applications within an AWS environment

Domain Knowledge:

• Proven experience at a Staff or Principal level navigating significant technical ambiguity and leading large-scale cross-functional technical efforts.

Leadership:

• Demonstrated ability to provide technical leadership within a cross-functional team to resolve problems and deliver solutions

Clearance & Eligibility:

• Must be a U.S. Citizen
• Must be able to obtain a DoD NIPR network account and Common Access Card (CAC)
• Must have or be able to obtain a Secret Clearance
• Security relevant certification (e.g. CompTIA Security Cloud) or willingness to obtain
• Ability to travel for a full week quarterly for team planning and client Program Management Reviews.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Based in the Denver CO San Antonio TX or Brooklyn NY area.
• Professional AWS Certifications (e.g. Solutions Architect or DevOps Engineer).
• Experience with Windows domain environments.
• Experience with observability and monitoring tools (e.g. Splunk Datadog).
• Experience in operational intelligence industrial technology or working within DoD/Air Force environments.

Our Culture

At Simplesense we value high-trust autonomy. We look for people who can navigate ambiguity and are driven by the mission.

Safety & Innovation: You embed security and reliability practices into daily work to drive continuous improvement and mitigate risk.

People & Communication: You invite vigorous debate and offer kindly blunt feedback always maintaining empathy and assuming noble intent.

Integrity & Ethics: You build trust by honoring commitments acting ethically and resolving conflict through direct honest communication.

Strategic Problem Solving: You focus on high-priority issues to create documented and scalable solutionsavoiding : You move quickly to fix small problems learn from the past and pivot transparently when the mission requires it.

Compensation and Benefits

Pay Range: $190k-$260k. per year. Compensation is determined based on experience skill level and location. We review ranges regularly to ensure market competitiveness.

Competitive Benefits

• Equity
• Medical Life Short-Term Disability and AD&D insurance
• Medical travel coverage
• Dental coverage
• Vision coverage
• 401k matching

Our Typical Hiring Process

1. Find Your Fit: Your journey starts here. Explore and apply to our open positions to find the right role for your skills.
2. Initial Chat: A brief call with our recruiting team to learn about your background and answer your initial questions about Simplesense.
3. Values & Vision: A conversation with a hiring manager to discuss how your aspirations align with our mission and goals of the team.
4. Show Your Skills: Complete a technical assessment that reflects the work youd be doing.
5. Team Interview: Interview with the team to discuss your experience and see if were a great match.
6. Final Handshake: A final conversation to ensure weve answered all your questions before making a decision.
7. Welcome to Simplesense!

Simplesense is an equal opportunity employer committed to a policy of merit-based employment. All employment decisionsincluding recruitment hiring promotion compensation benefits training and terminationare made based on individual qualifications performance and business needs. We strictly prohibit discrimination or harassment of any kind on the basis of protected characteristics as recognized by federal state or local law. As a U.S. government contractor Simplesense complies with all applicable equal employment opportunity laws Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act and the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA). If you need a reasonable accommodation to complete the application or take part in the interview process please contact People Operations at .