Senior Engineer, Internal Developer Platform

American Family Insurance; Denver (CO); Hybrid; USD 99,000 - 167,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical benefits

401(k) program

Paid time off

Job summary

American Family Insurance is seeking a cloud platform engineer to design, build, and operate cloud capabilities across AWS and GCP. You will enable reliable, secure, scalable delivery by building Kubernetes and IaC foundations, pipelines, and automation across engineering teams.

Ideal candidates have hands‑on experience with Backstage, Terraform, Crossplane, and GitOps, and can drive observability and SRE practices using Datadog and modern tooling.

Qualifications

• Experience designing, building, and operating cloud platforms across AWS and GCP.
• Ability to create self‑service tools and streamline workflows for developers.
• Proven track record with Backstage and custom plugins for developer experience.
• Strong IaC background with Terraform and Crossplane.io in Kubernetes environments.
• Hands‑on with CI/CD pipelines, artifact management, and release automation.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and operate cloud platform and DevOps capabilities across AWS and GCP.
• Develop Kubernetes and IaC foundations, automate pipelines, and drive reliability and observability.
• Lead integration of tools into CI/CD and implement GitOps for Kubernetes workloads.
• Monitor services and implement SRE practices with SLOs, error budgets, and incident response.

Skills

DevOps

AWS

GCP

Kubernetes

Terraform

Backstage

Python

Go

Bash

Datadog

CI/CD

GitOps

Jenkins

GitLab CI

Argo CD

Linux

Tools

Backstage.io

Terraform

Crossplane

JFrog Artifactory

Kubernetes

Docker

GitHub Actions

Argo CD

Flux

Job description

This role is responsible for designing, building, and operating cloud platform and DevOps capabilities across AWS and GCP. The engineer will enable reliable, secure, and scalable delivery by developing Kubernetes and Infrastructure-as-Code foundations, building and maintaining CI/CD pipelines, and driving automation, observability, and operational best practices across engineering teams.

Position Compensation Range: $99,000.00 - $167,000.00

Pay Rate Type: Salary

Relocation support is offered for eligible candidates.

This role has not been approved for sponsorship now or in the future, including current candidates with an approved F1 / OPT/ STEM qualification.

Core Qualifications & Responsibilities

Developer Experience (DevX) & Backstage Development

• Proven experience in designing, implementing, and managing an internal developer portal, preferably with Backstage.io.
• A strong desire to improve the developer experience by creating self‑service tools and streamlining workflows.
• Expertise in developing custom Backstage plugins and customizing the platform using TypeScript, Node.js, and React to meet the unique needs of our developers.
• Experience configuring and managing the Backstage Software Catalog to provide a unified view of services, documentation, and tooling.
• Ability to create and maintain software templates using Backstage's Scaffolder to standardize project creation and enforce best practices.

Cloud And Infrastructure Management

• Extensive experience with at least one major cloud provider (AWS, GCP) and familiarity with the other, including core services such as VPC, IAM, S3, and managed Kubernetes (EKS, GKE).
• Proficiency in Infrastructure as Code (IaC) principles and hands‑on experience with tools like Terraform.
• Experience with Crossplane.io to manage cloud services and infrastructure through a unified, Kubernetes‑native API, including creating and managing composite resources.
• Strong understanding of containerization technologies, including Docker and Kubernetes, and their ecosystems.

CI/CD & DevOps Mindset

• Solid experience with CI/CD principles and building and maintaining pipelines using GitLab CI/CD.
• Experience integrating various tools into CI/CD pipelines to automate builds, testing, and deployments.
• Proficiency in managing software artifacts and dependencies using JFrog Artifactory, including repositories and pipeline integration.
• Strong scripting and automation skill set using languages such as Python, Go, or Bash.

Observability & Site Reliability Engineering (SRE)

• A solid understanding of SRE principles, including SLOs, error budgets, and a focus on reliability, scalability, and performance.
• Hands‑on experience with Datadog for full‑stack observability, including setting up monitors, dashboards, and using APM for distributed tracing.
• Proactive approach to identifying and resolving platform issues before they impact developers.
• Experience troubleshooting complex, distributed systems and a methodical approach to problem‑solving.

Software Development Fundamentals

• Strong programming skills in languages such as Python, TypeScript, and JavaScript.
• Experience with web development fundamentals and API design (REST, GraphQL).
• Strong understanding of SDLC best practices, including version control with Git.
• Demonstrated knowledge of modern SDLC practices and operating models (e.g., Agile, product‑based teams, platform‑as‑a‑product).
• Experience delivering and operating cloud platforms in both AWS and GCP.
• Experience designing, building, and operating Kubernetes platforms and tooling, including cluster lifecycle, upgrades, workload onboarding patterns, ingress, service discovery, and secrets/config management.
• Experience with Infrastructure as Code and reusable module patterns across cloud providers, including pipeline integration and promotion strategies.
• Experience with CI/CD tooling and practices (e.g., Jenkins, GitLab CI, GitHub Actions). Including build/test/release automation, artifact management, and environment deployment strategies.
• Experience with GitOps and deployment automation patterns (e.g., Argo CD or Flux) for Kubernetes and cloud workloads.
• Experience with observability and operational practices (monitoring, alerting, centralized logging, tracing, dashboards, on‑call readiness, incident response, runbooks).
• Experience applying SRE/operational metrics and reliability practices (SLIs/SLOs, error budgets).
• Understanding of cloud fundamentals: VPC/VNet design, DNS, routing, load balancing, firewalls, certificates/TLS basics.
• Programming/scripting capability in Python, Go, Java, or Bash with strong Linux fundamentals.
• Integration of services and tools through APIs and secure communication patterns across applications, databases, and platforms.
• Knowledge of DevSecOps practices (secrets management, vulnerability scanning, least privilege, supply‑chain controls, automated policy enforcement).

Licenses

• Not applicable.

Travel Requirements

• Up to 10%.

Physical Requirements

• Work primarily involves sitting/standing.

Working Conditions

• Not applicable.

Additional Information

• All employees participate in New Employee Orientation during their first week. Sessions may be delivered in person at our Madison, WI Headquarters or one of our AmFam core locations, or virtually based on scheduling and availability.
• Offer to selected candidate contingent on results of applicable background checks.
• Offer contingent on signing a non‑disclosure agreement for proprietary information, trade secrets, and inventions.
• Sponsorship will not be considered for this position unless specified in the posting.

In this flex office/home role, you will be expected to work a minimum of 10 days per month from one of the following office locations: Madison, WI 53783; Boston, MA 02110; Denver, CO.

Candidates must reside within a 50‑mile radius of the office location (35‑mile radius for Boston).

Benefits include comprehensive medical, dental, vision, and wellbeing benefits, competitive 401(k) contribution, a pension plan, an annual incentive, 9 paid holidays, and paid time off (23 days accrued annually for full‑time employees). Additional benefits include student loan repayment program and paid‑family leave. Interns and contingent workers are not eligible for American Family Insurance Group benefits.

We are an equal‑opportunity employer. We comply with all applicable federal, state, and local non‑discrimination, non‑harassment, and equal opportunity laws. We also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable law. American Family Insurance is committed to the full inclusion of all qualified individuals. If a reasonable accommodation is needed for the application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, or to receive other employment benefits and privileges, please email [e-mail].