Deputy Chief of Platform Operations & Reliability

Systems Planning & Analysis, Inc.; United States; On-site; USD 180,000 - 225,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Retirement plan

Paid time off

Job summary

Systems Planning and Analysis, Inc. seeks a Deputy Chief of Platform Operations to lead and coordinate Platform Operations across environments, ensuring reliability and mission readiness.

You will act as backup incident commander and drive automation, governance, and cross‑team collaboration to meet evolving national security priorities. Reporting to the Chief, you will oversee high‑priority initiatives, enforce standards, and guide capacity planning while maintaining strong partnerships with

Qualifications

• Active Secret clearance at time of application.
• Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field.
• 9 years of hands-on experience in cloud engineering, Kubernetes, DevSecOps, or platform operations.
• Demonstrated experience supporting or leading multi-disciplinary operations for high-availability, mission-critical platforms.
• Hands-on technical expertise with cloud infrastructure, Kubernetes orchestration, DevSecOps tooling, observability systems, and automation frameworks.
• Experience driving operational improvements including automation, reliability engineering, workflow optimization, and cross-team integration.

Responsibilities

• Serve as second‑in‑command of Platform Operations, supporting division-wide leadership, execution, and operational readiness.
• Act as designated backup incident commander, assuming full operational authority during outages or mission-critical events when the Chief is unavailable.
• Lead high-priority, high-technical initiatives delegated by the Chief, including platform enhancements, automation efforts, reliability improvements, and cross-environment integration projects.
• Enforce operational processes, SLAs, quality standards, and readiness expectations across all branches and environment-aligned teams.
• Provide hands‑on technical expertise during incidents, major operational challenges, mission surges, or when team skill gaps require direct support.
• Drive cross‑functional integration with Systems Engineering to ensure alignment on governance, compliance, cybersecurity, architecture, QA, test, and change management.
• Advise on new operational policy, governance structures, and compliance requirements; ensure Platform Operations adheres to SE-led policies and contributes operational insights.
• Own capacity and performance forecasting across all environments, supporting scale modeling, resource planning, and operational readiness.
• Guide the lifecycle of core operational tooling, including monitoring, logging, pipeline health, and automation frameworks, to ensure consistency, effectiveness, and proper adoption across teams.
• Serve as escalation lead for complex troubleshooting and multi‑team operational issues, coordinating response between environment teams and Systems Engineering.
• Maintain accountability for operational documentation quality, ensuring runbooks, SOPs, and incident guides are accurate, current, and actionable.
• Partner with the Chief of Platform Operations and Technical Director to align operational improvements, tooling strategies, and technical architecture with mission priorities.
• Provide operational insight and interpretation of observability metrics, trends, and readiness indicators to leadership and stakeholders.
• Represent Platform Operations in mission engagements, readiness discussions, and leadership forums when delegated by the Chief.
• Promote operational excellence through automation, workflow optimization, and disciplined execution across all teams and environments.

Skills

Cloud engineering

Kubernetes

DevSecOps

Platform operations

Observability

Automation

Incident response

Cross-team leadership

Stakeholder communication

Education

Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field

Tools

Kubernetes

Job description

Systems Planning and Analysis, Inc. seeks a Deputy Chief of Platform Operations to lead and coordinate Platform Operations across environments, ensuring reliability and mission readiness.

You will act as backup incident commander and drive automation, governance, and cross‑team collaboration to meet evolving national security priorities. Reporting to the Chief, you will oversee high‑priority initiatives, enforce standards, and guide capacity planning while maintaining strong partnerships with