Senior Platform Engineer

Skyline Technology Solutions; Maryland; On-site; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Skyline Technology Solutions is seeking a Senior Platform Engineer to lead on-prem Kubernetes and secrets management platforms. You will own critical platform capabilities, drive architectural decisions, and scale Kubernetes across the organization, collaborating with Platform, Security, and Infra teams.

You will guide workload orchestration, PKI and authentication services, and platform reliability to support a growing workload density and internal customers relying on shared services.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience in a technical field.
• 7+ years in platform or infrastructure engineering roles.
• Hands-on Linux administration in production environments (RHEL/Ubuntu).
• Proven experience designing and operating Kubernetes in production.
• Strong automation and IaC skills (Ansible, Terraform).
• Experience with PKI, certificate management, TLS, and trust distribution.
• Familiarity with identity patterns (OIDC, SAML, OAuth).

Responsibilities

• Architect, operate, and scale on-prem Kubernetes platforms supporting shared services.
• Improve platform reliability and operability to support growth.
• Lead adoption of reliability and observability practices across teams.
• Design and maintain PKI, certificate lifecycle management and access services.
• Define standards for authentication, issuance, renewal, and trust distribution.
• Collaborate with Platform, Application, Security, and Infra teams to embed platform services in architecture.

Skills

Kubernetes

Docker

Ansible

Terraform

PKI

OIDC

SAML

OAuth2 Proxy

Platform security

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/IT/Engineering

Tools

HashiCorp Vault

Certmanager

Job description

We are seeking a Senior Platform Engineer to lead the engineering, operation, and evolution of Skyline’s on-premises Kubernetes and secrets management platforms. This role is a senior hands-on technical position responsible for the core services that enable other engineering teams to deploy, run, and secure modern workloads at scale. The engineer in this position will own critical platform capabilities centered on Kubernetes, workload orchestration, and PKI/secrets infrastructure, with a primary focus on expanding Skyline’s Kubernetes footprint from a small number of targeted clusters into a foundational hosting model for a much broader set of production services.

This role is ideal for an engineer who wants deep ownership of infrastructure that matters and the opportunity to shape how the organization modernizes application hosting. The Senior Platform Engineer will serve as a key technical driver in scaling Skyline’s on-premises Kubernetes environment, guiding architectural decisions, improving platform reliability and operability, and helping other divisions successfully adopt platform services. This includes direct responsibility for the underlying engineering patterns, operational standards, and service maturity needed to support a significant increase in workload density and organizational dependence on the platform.

As part of the Platform Engineering department, this position works across divisional boundaries to provide shared services rather than supporting a single application team. Success in this role requires strong technical judgment, comfort operating foundational production systems, and the ability to translate platform capabilities into practical outcomes for internal stakeholders. The right candidate will combine deep systems expertise with a service-oriented mindset and will play a central role in defining how Skyline delivers Kubernetes-based infrastructure and secure workload orchestration in the years ahead.

You can expect to spend your time accomplishing the following:

• 50% of the time on Objective 1: Kubernetes and Workload Orchestration Platform Ownership
• 25% of the time on Objective 2: PKI, Identity, and Platform Access Services
• 25% of the time on Objective 3: Cross-Functional Technical Leadership

Job Responsibilities - What to Expect

• Architect, implement, operate, and scale Skyline’s on-premises Kubernetes platforms used to host shared services and application workloads across the organization.
• Administer and improve Kubernetes cluster architecture, node lifecycle practices, platform reliability, and operational standards to support growth in workload scale and organizational dependence on the platform.
• Lead the engineering and execution required to expand Kubernetes from its current footprint into a broader hosting model capable of supporting a significantly larger portion of Skyline’s server-based workloads.
• Administer and enhance platform services related to PKI, certificate lifecycle management via Hashicorp Vault, and Certmanager
• Design, implement, and maintain authentication and access patterns for platform and cluster services, including technologies such as OIDC, SAML, SCIM, OAuth2 Proxy, and related identity integrations.
• Partner with engineering teams to guide the adoption of reliability and observability best practices.
• Define and maintain operational standards for certificate issuance, renewal, trust distribution, and platform authentication services across shared environments.
• Collaborate with Platform, Application, Security, and Infrastructure Engineering teams to ensure Kubernetes, PKI, and authentication services are embedded into architecture, operational workflows, and service delivery models.
• Provide expert guidance on Kubernetes operations, workload placement, platform scalability, certificate management, authentication patterns, and production-readiness considerations.
• Help guide internal adoption of platform services by translating technical platform capabilities into clear standards, operational practices, and engineering patterns for other divisions.

Your Knowledge & Expertise

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or related technical field, or equivalent practical experience
• 7+ years of experience in platform engineering, systems engineering, infrastructure engineering, DevOps, or SRE roles supporting production environments
• Proven hands-on experience administering and troubleshooting Linux systems in production, including RHEL, Ubuntu, or similar enterprise distributions
• Demonstrated experience designing, operating, and supporting Kubernetes platforms in production environments
• Strong experience with containerization and workload orchestration technologies, including Kubernetes and Docker or other OCI-compatible runtimes
• Experience with infrastructure automation and infrastructure-as-code using tools such as Ansible, Terraform, or equivalent frameworks
• Experience supporting PKI services, certificate lifecycle management, TLS configuration, and trust distribution in enterprise environments
• Familiarity with identity and authentication patterns for modern platforms, including OIDC, SAML, SSO integrations, OAuth-based access patterns, or related technologies
• Experience designing or supporting highly available, security-conscious, and operationally mature infrastructure services
• Demonstrated ability to collaborate across platform, application, security, and infrastructure teams and lead technical initiatives without direct authority
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to document standards, explain design decisions, and guide internal consumers of shared services