Staff Platform Engineer

HonorVet Technologies; San Diego (CA); Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

HonorVet Technologies in the San Diego area seeks a Staff Platform Engineer to own strategy and execution for client developer platforms, including enterprise GitLab and Artifactory used by 3,000+ users. You will drive cloud-native transformations and define architectural direction for platform teams.

You will mentor engineers, lead multi-region HA deployments, and influence standard practices like GitOps, 12-factor apps, and observability in a hybrid-work environment.

Qualifications

• BS in Computer Science or equivalent experience.
• 7+ years operating and architecting enterprise-scale platforms.
• 5+ years of self-managed GitLab experience with HA and disaster recovery.
• 5+ years of Artifactory experience in enterprise deployments.
• 3+ years of deep Kubernetes experience in multi-cluster environments.
• 7+ years of expert Linux experience including kernel and networking.
• PostgreSQL HA with Patroni; advanced networking incl. BGP/anycast.

Responsibilities

• Own operational strategy and technical direction for GitLab and Artifactory platforms.
• Lead cloud-native transformations, Kubernetes migrations, and GitOps adoption.
• Drive architecture for multi-region high-availability deployments and active-active patterns.
• Design self-healing systems with automated remediation and chaos engineering practices.
• Establish cloud-native best practices, including 12-factor apps and observability.
• Mentor team members on automation patterns and cloud-native architectures.
• Influence organizational standards for platform engineering and developer experience.
• Evaluate emerging technologies including AI-assisted operations and service mesh.

Skills

Enterprise-scale platforms

GitLab administration

Artifactory administration

Kubernetes

Linux performance tuning

PostgreSQL HA

Networking (BGP/anycast)

Python/Go/Bash

Education

BS in Computer Science

Tools

GitLab

Artifactory

Kubernetes

Helm

ArgoCD

Flux

Istio

Terraform

Prometheus

Job description

HonorVet Technologies is a Service Disable Veteran-Owned IT staffing firm, ISO 9001 and ISO 27001 certified, working with federal agencies, state governments, and Fortune 500 enterprise clients across the US. What makes us different isn't a tagline; it's the way we work. We don't forward resumes and hope for the best. We take the time to understand where a professional like you is headed and only reach out when we genuinely believe there's a fit worth exploring.

Job Title: Staff Platform Engineer

Work Mode: (Hybrid) - 2-3 days in the office at

Duration: 12 months

Overview:

This Staff Platform Engineer role owns strategy and execution for client's critical developer platforms, including enterprise GitLab supporting 3,000+ users and JFrog Artifactory. The role leads cloud-native transformation, mentors team members, and establishes technical direction for platform engineering.

What You Will Do:

• Own operational strategy and technical direction for GitLab and Artifactory platforms
• Lead cloud-native transformations, Kubernetes migrations, and GitOps adoption
• Drive architecture for multi-region high-availability deployments and active-active patterns
• Design self-healing systems with automated remediation and chaos engineering practices
• Establish cloud-native best practices, including 12-factor apps, containerization, and observability
• Mentor team members on automation patterns and cloud-native architectures
• Influence organizational standards for platform engineering and developer experience
• Evaluate emerging technologies, including AI-assisted operations, eBPF, and service mesh
• Define and track SLIs, SLOs, and SLAs with a continuous improvement focus

Skills: Required:

• BS in computer science or equivalent experience
• 7+ years operating and architecting enterprise-scale platforms
• 5+ years of self-managed GitLab experience, including Geo, high availability, and disaster recovery
• 5+ years of Artifactory experience, including Hub/Edge, federation, and enterprise deployments
• 3+ years of deep Kubernetes experience, including operators, CRDs, service mesh, and multi-cluster environments
• 7+ years of expert Linux experience, including kernel, networking, and performance tuning
• PostgreSQL high availability experience, such as Patroni, and advanced networking knowledge, including BGP, anycast, and zero-trust architectures

Cloud-Native Expertise

• Deep knowledge of cloud computing, infrastructure, and architecture patterns
• Experience with major cloud providers, including AWS, Azure, and GCP, and their managed services
• Experience with cloud-native tooling, including Kubernetes operators, Helm, ArgoCD, and Flux
• Experience with service mesh technologies, including Istio, and infrastructure-as-code tools, including Terraform
• Experience with cloud-native observability, including Prometheus, and distributed tracing
• Experience with cloud-native security, including OPA, Trivy, and SBOM practices
• Production-grade automation experience with Python, Go, and Bash
• CI/CD platform design experience at scale
• Experience with FedRAMP IL4/IL5
• Proven mentorship and team development experience
• Strong communication and cross-team influence skills
• Growth mindset, humility, and commitment to continuous development

Preferred

• Open-source contributions to Kubernetes, GitLab, or Artifactory projects
• Experience with eBPF observability/security, WebAssembly, or MLOps
• Published technical writing or conference talks
• Developer platform or platform-as-a-service experience
• SRE practices and chaos engineering experience.