Senior Platform Engineer

Bixal; Maryland; On-site; USD 135,000 - 145,000; Full time

Job summary

Bixal is seeking a Senior Platform Engineer in Maryland to build and operate CI/CD pipelines, Terraform templates, and observability. You will work hands-on with Terraform, GitLab, and Datadog, delivering golden-path templates and environment automation for a mission-critical federal platform.

You will join a Platform Enablement team, participate in two-week sprints, and contribute to on-call rotations while improving reliability and developer productivity.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree and at least eight years of related experience.
• Hands-on experience building delivery pipelines and IaC for high-availability systems.
• Proven ability to improve environment stability and deployment safety.
• Experience with monitoring/alerting for incident response and production ops.
• Strong automation skills to reduce recurring work and boost velocity.
• Independent delivery of platform improvements with measurable impact.
• Solid understanding of Datadog, GitLab CI/CD, and FedRAMP‑authorized toolchains.
• Ability to obtain and maintain a Tier 4 High Risk Public Trust clearance.

Responsibilities

• Build and operate CI/CD pipelines, IaC, and Terraform templates for the engineering platform.
• Implement observability on Datadog with instrumentation and alerts.
• Support environment automation, on-call rotations, and golden-path delivery.
• Improve environment stability, deployment safety, and configuration consistency.
• Implement monitoring and alerting to support incident response and production ops.
• Eliminate recurring work via automation to boost team velocity.
• Deliver platform improvements with measurable impact on reliability and developer productivity.
• Participate in two-week sprints, backlog refinement, and architecture reviews.

Skills

Platform engineering

Automation

On-call operations

Observability

Education

Bachelor's degree

Tools

Terraform

GitLab CI/CD

Datadog

Job description

We're looking for a Senior Platform Engineer to build and operate the CI/CD pipelines, Infrastructure as Code, and observability foundation that engineering teams rely on daily. You'll work hands-on with Terraform, GitLab, and Datadog to deliver golden-path templates and environment automation, supporting on-call rotations and continuous improvement of our client’s developer platform.

This role offers you a unique opportunity to make a meaningful impact on a mission-critical federal platform that aligns with Bixal's mission of delivering innovative, human-centered solutions. At Bixal, we support your professional journey, ensuring your experience reflects our purpose-driven culture and prepares you for future success.

Compensation

The salary range for this role is $135,000 – $145,000. In the spirit of transparency, most offers tend to land near the midpoint of the range. We make compensation decisions thoughtfully, considering your experience, the skills you bring, and our commitment to internal equity. Fairness and transparency are core to how we operate.

Responsibilities

• Build and operate CI/CD pipelines, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), and Terraform templates supporting the engineering platform.
• Implement and maintain observability on Datadog, including instrumentation, alerting, and service-level objectives.
• Support environment automation, on-call rotations, and golden-path delivery.
• Improve environment stability, deployment safety, and configuration consistency across agency services.
• Implement monitoring and alerting that support effective incident response and production operations.
• Eliminate recurring operational work through automation, improving team velocity.
• Deliver platform improvements with measurable impact on reliability and developer productivity.
• Participate in two-week sprints, backlog refinement, and architecture reviews with the Platform Enablement team.
• Other relevant duties as qualified and trained to perform.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree and at least eight (8) years of related experience, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Hands‑on experience building and maintaining delivery pipelines, infrastructure automation, and shared platform services for high‑availability systems.
• Demonstrated ability to improve environment stability, deployment safety, and configuration consistency.
• Experience implementing monitoring and alerting that supports effective incident response and production operations.
• Strong automation skills to eliminate recurring operational work and improve team velocity.
• Able to independently deliver platform improvements with measurable impact on reliability and developer productivity.
• Solid understanding of Datadog, GitLab CI/CD, and FedRAMP‑authorized toolchains.
• Must be able to obtain and maintain a Tier 4 High Risk Public Trust clearance.

Nice To Have Skills And Experience

• Experience with Terraform-based golden-path/IaC module design in a federal or regulated environment.
• Exposure to AI‑assisted coding tools for boilerplate or IaC generation.
• Prior federal or large-scale enterprise platform engineering experience.