Staff Platform Engineer

Horizon3; United States; Remote; USD 180,000 - 230,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Growth opportunities

Innovation-driven culture

Flexible remote work

Inclusive and diverse team

Job summary

Horizon3 is seeking a Senior or Staff Platform Engineer to join the Internal Platform Team (IPT) and shape the cloud and delivery foundations behind NodeZero. You will lead cross-team initiatives, define platform direction, and improve developer workflows with secure and reliable production systems.

This hands-on technical leadership role requires managing AWS, Kubernetes/EKS, Terraform, Crossplane, and observability tooling to deliver scalable, self-service platforms for multiple product teams

Qualifications

• Strong Kubernetes experience, including production operations, networking, reliability.
• Excellent communication, mentoring, and technical-influence skills.
• Demonstrated success leading complex initiatives across multiple teams.
• Experience operating CI/CD and delivery infrastructure.
• Deep experience designing and operating cloud platforms, preferably AWS.
• 8+ years in platform engineering or related roles with substantial production ownership.
• Strong IAM, secrets, networking, ingress, and least privilege knowledge.
• Experience with infrastructure-as-code and automation with Terraform or Crossplane.
• Proficiency in Go and Python for platform services or automation.
• Multi-region or multi-environment SaaS platform experience.
• GitLab CI/CD, self-hosted runners, OpenTelemetry, or Datadog experience.
• Internal developer platform or Platform-as-a-Service experience.
• Security-sensitive, regulated, or cybersecurity experience.
• Ephemeral environments, automated provisioning, or platform-lifecycle experience.
• Startup or high-growth company experience.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design and evolution of AWS, Kubernetes/EKS, and shared platform services.
• Define architecture for infrastructure automation, service delivery, regional capabilities, and ephem environments.
• Build reusable platform capabilities, self-service workflows, and release-safety practices.
• Evolve infrastructure-as-code and declarative approaches, including Terraform and Crossplane-related capabilities.
• Improve platform reliability, observability, security, performance, and operability.
• Participate in on-call and incident response, leading post-incident improvements.
• Drive high-impact initiatives across multiple teams and balance reliability, security, cost, developer experience, and delivery speed.
• Establish platform standards, reduce technical debt, and guide design decisions.
• Partner with feature teams to turn platform needs into durable solutions.
• Mentor engineers and raise the technical bar across Engineering.
• Improve documentation, runbooks, interfaces, and self-service paths.
• Communicate clearly and build alignment across Platform, Application Engineering, Data Engineering, Product, Program Management, and Security.

Skills

Kubernetes

Go

Python

AWS

CI/CD

SRE

Security

Observability

Platform Ownership

Multi-region SaaS

Tools

Kubernetes

Terraform

Crossplane

OpenTelemetry

Datadog

GitLab CI/CD

Go

Python

AWS

Self-hosted runners

Job description

We are looking for a Senior OR Staff Platform Engineer to join Horizon3’s Internal Platform Team (IPT) and shape the cloud and delivery foundations behind NodeZero

You will lead complex, cross-team initiatives; define platform direction; improve developer workflows; and establish standards that make our systems secure, reliable, and easier to operate

This is a hands‑on technical leadership role for an engineer who enjoys solving ambiguous problems and building reusable platform capabilities

Platform Strategy, Delivery & Operations:

• Lead the design and evolution of AWS, Kubernetes/EKS, and shared platform services
• Define architecture for infrastructure automation, service delivery, regional capabilities, and ephem environments
• Build reusable platform capabilities, self-service workflows, and release-safety practices
• Evolve infrastructure-as-code and declarative approaches, including Terraform and Crossplane-related capabilities
• Improve platform reliability, observability, security, performance, and operability
• Participate in on-call and incident response, leading post-incident improvements

Technical Leadership & Collaboration:

• Drive high-impact initiatives across multiple teams and balance reliability, security, cost, developer experience, and delivery speed
• Establish platform standards, reduce technical debt, and guide design decisions
• Partner with feature teams to turn platform needs into durable solutions
• Mentor engineers and raise the technical bar across Engineering
• Improve documentation, runbooks, interfaces, and self-service paths
• Communicate clearly and build alignment across Platform, Application Engineering, Data Engineering, Product, Program Management, and Security

Our Platform Stack:

• AWS, Kubernetes, and EKS
• Terraform and Crossplane-related tooling
• GitLab and CI/CD pipelines
• OpenTelemetry and Datadog
• Linux, containers, networking, IAM, and secrets-management systems
• Go and Python for automation and platform services
• Exact tool matches are less important than strong platform fundamentals, sound judgment, and end-to-end ownership of production systems

What Success Looks Like:

• Engineering teams move faster through reliable platform capabilities and self-service workflows
• Shared services are secure, observable, maintainable, and easier to operate
• Regional and ephem…?
• Platform consumers have clear interfaces, documentation, and support paths
• You are trusted to lead complex platform decisions and develop other engineers

Why Join Us:

• You’ll shape the platform behind a rapidly evolving cybersecurity product used by organizations around the world, working with engineers, security practitioners, and technical leaders on problems with broad technical impact

Benefits

• Growth Opportunities: Be part of a dynamic and growing team with numerous career advancement opportunities
• Innovation-Driven Culture: Work in a collaborative environment that encourages creativity and out-of-the-box thinking
• Flexible Work Environment: Enjoy the convenience and work-life balance that comes with remote work
• Inclusive and Diverse Team: We value diversity and promote an inclusive culture where everyone can thrive

• Strong Kubernetes experience, including production operations, networking, reliability, and troubleshooting
• Excellent communication, mentoring, and technical-influence skills
• Demonstrated success leading complex initiatives across multiple teams
• Experience operating CI/CD and delivery infrastructure
• Deep experience designing and operating cloud platforms, preferably AWS
• 8+ years in platform engineering, infrastructure engineering, SRE, DevOps, or software engineering with substantial production-platform ownership
• Strong understanding of IAM, secrets, networking, ingress, and least privilege
• Experience with distributed-systems observability and operational practices
• Strong infrastructure-as-code and automation experience with Terraform, Crossplane, or comparable tools
• Proficiency in Go and Python for platform services, developer tooling, or automation
• Multi-region or multi-environment SaaS platform experience
• GitLab CI/CD, self-hosted runners, OpenTelemetry, or Datadog experience
• Internal developer platform, declarative API, or Platform-as-a-Service experience
• Security-sensitive, regulated, or cybersecurity experience
• Ephemeral-environment, automated-provisioning, or platform-lifecycle experience
• Startup or high-growth company experience