Senior Platform Engineer, Database Platform & SRE

Lumen; Columbia (SC); Remote; USD 152,000 - 223,000; Full time

Job summary

Lumen is seeking a Principal Engineer to drive the transformation of its database organization into Platform Engineering and SRE, focusing on standardization, automation, and reliability across the database estate.

The role emphasizes reducing toil, improving observability, and enabling cloud readiness, with leadership across DBA, Operations, Security, and Cloud teams in a fully remote, US-based position.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or equivalent experience.
• 12+ years of experience in database engineering, platform engineering, infrastructure engineering, SRE, cloud engineering, or related technical disciplines.
• Proven experience leading large-scale engineering, automation, operational excellence, or transformation initiatives in complex enterprise environments.
• Experience driving standardization, process optimization, reliability improvements, and operational efficiency across large-scale technology platforms.
• Strong experience with Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC), automation, CI/CD, and modern engineering practices.
• Demonstrated success leading cross-functional technical initiatives and influencing engineering teams.
• Strong leadership, communication, problem-solving, and stakeholder management skills.

Responsibilities

• Lead the transformation of DBA teams toward Platform Engineering and SRE practices.
• Drive adoption of automation-first and reliability-focused operating models.
• Develop engineering standards, operational processes, and best practices that improve consistency and scale.
• Identify and eliminate repetitive manual activities across database operations.
• Analyze ServiceNow incidents, requests, and recurring work patterns to identify automation and optimization opportunities.
• Drive reductions in ticket volume, operational overhead, and technical debt.
• Lead brownfield modernization, standardization, and simplification initiatives across database platforms.
• Improve operational consistency, platform resiliency, and migration readiness.
• Establish reusable engineering patterns that support modernization and cloud adoption initiatives.
• Establish automation frameworks, standards, governance, and reusable engineering capabilities.
• Drive Operational automation initiatives.
• Improve provisioning, patching, upgrades, compliance remediation, and operational workflows through automation.
• Establish proactive monitoring, observability, and performance management practices.
• Drive improvements in platform reliability, availability, resiliency, and operational health.
• Lead initiatives focused on performance optimization, capacity management, and operational risk reduction.
• Develop scalable approaches for patching, upgrades, platform currency, and lifecycle management.
• Improve compliance with security, supportability, and operational standards.
• Provide technical leadership, mentorship, and guidance across engineering and operational teams.
• Partner with Operations, Security, Cloud, and Architecture teams to operationalize transformation initiatives.
• Promote a culture of continuous improvement, engineering excellence, and operational discipline.

Skills

12+ years experience

Platform Engineering

SRE

Automation

IaC

CI/CD

Cross-functional leadership

Stakeholder management

Problem solving

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/Engineering/IS

Tools

Terraform

Ansible

AWX

GitOps

CI/CD pipelines

Scripting

Job description

Lumen is seeking a Principal Engineer to drive the transformation of its database organization into Platform Engineering and SRE, focusing on standardization, automation, and reliability across the database estate.

The role emphasizes reducing toil, improving observability, and enabling cloud readiness, with leadership across DBA, Operations, Security, and Cloud teams in a fully remote, US-based position.