Lead Platform Automation Engineer

The Fannie Mae; Reston (VA); On-site; USD 141,000 - 184,000; Full time

Job summary

Fannie Mae in Reston, VA is seeking a Lead Platform Automation Engineer to steer automated workflows and AI-enabled platform engineering projects. You will mentor team members, design scalable automation, and collaborate with development teams to raise productivity and reliability.

The role emphasizes building AI-assisted workflows, integrating tools like Temporal, Backstage, GitLab, and Terraform, and driving observability and incident resolution across enterprise platforms.

Qualifications

• 4+ years of software development with modern languages (Python, Java, Node.js).
• Cloud-native design/deploy on AWS (ECS, EKS, Lambda, S3, SQS, Step Functions).
• Experience with workflow automation/orchestration (Temporal or similar).
• Designing/developing REST APIs across enterprise platforms.
• CI/CD, Git-based development, and automation practices.
• Experience using AI-assisted development tools (GitHub Copilot, Claude, ChatGPT).
• Observability: monitoring/logging/metrics/tracing experience.
• Troubleshooting distributed systems and production issues.
• Curiosity/adaptability with new technologies, including AI.

Responsibilities

• Lead design, development, and support of automated workflows.
• Integrate AI-assisted development into platform engineering workflows.
• Leverage AI tools to accelerate workflow development, testing, and documentation.
• Design/maintain unified observability to monitor metrics and health.
• Troubleshoot complex platform issues and improve reliability.
• Collaborate with application teams to identify automation opportunities.
• Participate in code/design reviews and continuous improvement initiatives.
• Ensure platform services are reliable with cross-team collaboration.

Skills

Python

Java

Node.js

AWS

CI/CD

Workflow automation

AI-assisted development

Observability

API design

Mentoring

Education

Bachelor’s degree in computer science

AWS Certification

Terraform Associate

Tools

Temporal

Backstage

GitLab

Terraform Enterprise

Jira

Kubernetes

OpenTelemetry

Grafana

Prometheus

Job description

Playing an essential role in the U.S. economy, Fannie Mae is foundational to housing finance. Here, your expertise can help fuel purpose-driven innovation that expands access to homeownership and affordable rental housing across the country. Join Fannie Mae to grow your career and help people find a place to call home.

Job Description

As a valued colleague on our team, you will act as the team lead in designing and developing advanced solutions for information technology (IT) infrastructure environments, including coding, testing, and certifying technology platforms, software, and applications, as well as coach and mentor team members. The Lead Platform Automation Engineer role will offer you the flexibility to make each day your own, while working alongside people who care so that you can deliver on the following responsibilities:

• Design, develop, and support automated workflows using modern workflow orchestration technologies, including Temporal, to streamline complex, multi-step provisioning and platform processes
• Integrate AI-assisted development capabilities into platform engineering workflows to improve developer productivity, reduce repetitive engineering activities, and accelerate delivery of automation solutions.
• Leverage GitHub Copilot, Claude, ChatGPT, and other AI-assisted development tools to accelerate workflow development, code generation, refactoring, troubleshooting, documentation, and test automation.
• Design, implement, and maintain unified observability solutions to monitor build volumes, success and failure rates, component versions, runtime impact, and other key operational metrics.
• Monitor and troubleshoot complex platform, workflow, integration, and application issues, identifying root causes and implementing solutions to improve platform reliability and operational efficiency.
• Partner with application development teams to understand operational requirements, identify automation opportunities, eliminate manual activities, and continuously improve the developer experience
• Participate in technical discussions, knowledge-sharing sessions, code/design reviews, and continuous improvement initiatives across the Platform Engineering organization.
• Support the reliability and availability of platform services through effective monitoring, troubleshooting, and collaboration with engineering and support teams.

Qualifications

THE EXPERIENCE YOU BRING TO THE TEAM Minimum Required Experiences

• 4+ years Strong software development experience with modern programming languages (Python, Java and nodeJS) and frameworks, with demonstrated ability to design, develop, test, and support scalable production solutions.
• Hands-on experience designing, developing, and deploying cloud-native solutions on AWS, using services such as ECS, EKS, AWS Lambda, S3, SNS, SQS, Step Functions, and related AWS services.
• Experience designing and developing workflow automation and orchestration solutions, using technologies such as Temporal or similar workflow orchestration platforms.
• Experience designing, developing, and integrating REST APIs and API-based services across enterprise platforms and technology ecosystems.
• Experience with platform engineering, CI/CD, Git-based development, and automation practices, including building reusable engineering frameworks, harnesses, and workflow components.
• Experience using AI-assisted software development tools, such as GitHub Copilot, Claude, ChatGPT, or similar technologies, to support software development, workflow automation, testing, troubleshooting, and engineering productivity.
• Experience implementing and supporting monitoring, logging, metrics, tracing, and observability solutions to assess application and platform health, troubleshoot failures, and improve operational reliability.
• Demonstrated experience troubleshooting complex distributed systems, platform integrations, and production issues, including root cause analysis, incident resolution, resiliency, and continuous improvement.
• Shows curiosity and adaptability in learning and responsibly applying new technologies, including artificial intelligence, to reimagine how we work.

Desired Experiences

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science or equivalent experience.
• Relevant industry certifications such as AWS Certified Solutions Architect, AWS Certified Developer, AWS Certified DevOps Engineer - Professional, HashiCorp Terraform Associate, or comparable cloud/platform engineering certifications.
• Hands-on experience with Temporal, Backstage, GitLab, Terraform Enterprise, and Jira in an enterprise platform engineering environment.
• Experience with observability and telemetry standards and tools, such as OpenTelemetry, Grafana, Prometheus, Splunk, Datadog, or Dynatrace.
• Experience with AI/agent engineering concepts and frameworks, including tool calling, structured outputs, context engineering, evaluation frameworks, Model Context Protocol (MCP), or similar technologies.
• Experience with cloud-native technologies, containers, Kubernetes, infrastructure automation, and enterprise platform engineering environments.

Target Salary: $141,000 to $184,000 a year

Enterprise Platforms - Technology Engineering - Lead Associate #LI-Hybrid Qualifications Education: Bachelor's Level Degree (Required) The future is what you make it to be. Discover compelling opportunities at Fanniemae.com/careers.

Fannie Mae is an equal opportunity employer and considers qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender identity/gender expression, marital or parental status, or any other protected factor. Fannie Mae is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities who are employees or applicants for employment, unless to do so would cause undue hardship to the company. If you need assistance using our online system and/or you need a reasonable accommodation related to the hiring/application process, please complete this form.

As part of our comprehensive benefits package, Fannie Mae offers a broad range of Health, Life, Voluntary Lifestyle, and other benefits and perks that enhance an employee's physical, mental, emotional, and financial well-being.

Requisition compensation: 141000 to 184000

Tackle America's biggest housing challenges using the latest technology and AI, while collaborating with experts in their fields.

As a Fortune 25 company, Fannie Mae expands access to housing across America. Powered by the latest tech and AI, our innovative products and services drive the mortgage industry forward. We believe that prioritizing our people’s growth and success is essential to achieving our business goals and fulfilling our purpose.