Sr. Platform Engineering

Archer; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 144,000 - 175,000; Full time

Job summary

Archer, an aerospace company in San Jose, California, is seeking a Senior Platform Engineer to join its platform engineering team. This role is vital for accelerating product development and operational efficiency. Responsibilities include designing CI/CD pipelines, creating self-service tooling, and collaborating with AI/ML engineers. The position requires a strong background in Platform Engineering, cloud platforms, and CI/CD systems. The targeted base pay ranges from $144,000 to $175,000, depending on experience and skills.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in Platform Engineering or related fields.
• Deep expertise in cloud platforms and infrastructure-as-code tools.
• Extensive CI/CD system management experience.

Responsibilities

• Design and maintain CI/CD pipelines for rapid deployments.
• Develop self-service tooling and internal platforms for teams.
• Collaborate with AI/ML Engineers for model training and deployment.

Skills

Platform Engineering

DevOps

AWS

Terraform

Kubernetes

Python

CI/CD

Tools

GitLab CI

GitHub Actions

Jenkins

Spinnaker

Docker

Job description

Archer is an aerospace company based in San Jose, California building an all‑electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft with a mission to advance the benefits of sustainable air mobility. We are designing, manufacturing, and operating an all‑electric aircraft that can carry four passengers while producing minimal noise.

Our sights are set high and our problems are hard, and we believe that diversity in the workplace is what makes us smarter, drives better insights, and will ultimately lift us all to success. We are dedicated to cultivating an equitable and inclusive environment that embraces our differences, and supports and celebrates all of our team members.

We are looking for a highly motivated and versatile Senior Platform Engineer to join our platform engineering team. This unique role is central to accelerating our product development lifecycle and operational efficiency. You will be instrumental in bridging the gap between development, infrastructure, and our burgeoning AI/ML initiatives, focusing on automation, self‑service infrastructure, and workflow optimization. This position is ideal for an experienced engineer who thrives on creating leverage for others and tackling complex, interdisciplinary challenges.

Key Responsibilities

CI/CD and Automation

• Design, implement, and maintain scalable and reliable CI/CD pipelines (e.g., using GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, Jenkins, Spinnaker) to ensure rapid and safe deployments across multiple environments.
• Drive the adoption of best practices for build management, testing automation, and deployment strategies (Canary, Blue/Green, etc.).
• Minimize deployment friction and cycle time for all engineering teams.
• Develop and champion self‑service tooling and internal platforms (leveraging tools like Terraform, Ansible, Kubernetes, or equivalent cloud provider APIs) that empower development teams to provision and manage their own infrastructure resources securely and efficiently.
• Establish guardrails and policy‑as‑code to ensure compliance, cost efficiency, and security across all provisioned infrastructure.
• Collaborate closely with AI/ML Engineers to improve the underlying platform used for model training, experimentation, and serving.
• Focus on the operationalization of MLOps pipelines, including data lineage tracking, feature store integration, and production model deployment automation.
• Assist in optimizing resource allocation (e.g., GPU usage, specialized hardware) for AI workloads.

Workflow Automation & Internal Tooling

• Architect and build automated workflows and bots, primarily within communication tools like Slack or Zoom, to streamline common engineering tasks (e.g., on‑call handoffs, incident response, environment status checks, approval processes).
• Develop internal APIs and services that connect disparate engineering systems to enhance communication and cross‑functional transparency.

Required Qualifications

• 5+ years of professional experience in Platform Engineering, DevOps, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), or a related discipline.
• Deep expertise in cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and infrastructure‑as‑code tools (Terraform strongly preferred).
• Expertise in containerization and orchestration technologies (Docker and Kubernetes).
• Proficiency in scripting and general‑purpose programming languages (e.g., Python, Go, Bash).
• Extensive experience designing and managing CI/CD systems at scale.
• Proven track record of building internal developer platforms or self‑service tools.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with AI/ML infrastructure, MLOps tooling, or data pipeline technologies (e.g., Airflow, Kubeflow, Vertex AI, SageMaker).
• Prior experience building conversational interfaces, bots, or workflow automation tools for platforms like Slack or Teams.
• Familiarity with distributed tracing, logging, and monitoring systems (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, ELK stack, Datadog).
• Experience with security best practices in a cloud environment (IAM, network security, secrets management).

At Archer we aim to attract, retain, and motivate talent that possess the skills and leadership necessary to grow our business. We drive a pay‑for‑performance culture and reward performance that supports the Company’s business strategy. For this position we are targeting a base pay between $144,000 - $175,000. Actual compensation offered will be determined by factors such as job‑related knowledge, skills, and experience.

Equal Opportunity Employer Statement

Archer is proud to be an Equal Opportunity employer committed to diversity and inclusivity in the workplace. All aspects of employment are decided on the basis of merit, qualifications, and business needs. We do not discriminate based upon race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, gender identity or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.

Visa Sponsorship

Archer is unable to provide work visa sponsorship for this position at the present time.