Senior Platform Engineer (Crossplane & Backstage)

Sabenza IT & Recruitment; Johannesburg; On-site; ZAR 900,000 - 1,300,000; Full time

Job summary

Sabenza IT & Recruitment in Johannesburg, South Africa, is seeking a Senior Platform Engineer to design, build and operate scalable, production-grade platforms that empower engineering teams.

You will shape cloud-native foundations, automation and internal developer platforms that improve reliability, speed and developer experience across the organisation. You will work with AWS best practices and Well-Architected principles while driving GitOps, CI/CD and platform extensibility.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in Platform Engineering.
• 6+ years of public cloud experience with deep AWS expertise.
• 6+ years of containerisation and platform experience.
• CKA certification preferred.
• Strong GitOps experience with ArgoCD / Flux and Helm / Kustomize.
• Hands-on with Crossplane, ArgoCD and Backstage is expected.
• Proven ability to build production-grade platforms for self-service use.
• Solid understanding of cloud-native and distributed systems.

Responsibilities

• Design and build self-service platforms and platform APIs.
• Architect and operate scalable cloud-native platforms on AWS.
• Implement Infrastructure as Code with Terraform, CDK, Pulumi, Crossplane.
• Build and operate Kubernetes environments with GitOps (ArgoCD/Flux, Helm, Kustomize).
• Develop Kubernetes Operators and enable platform extensibility.
• Implement monitoring and observability with CloudWatch, Prometheus, Grafana, Loki, X-Ray.
• Drive CI/CD and DevOps with GitHub Actions and GitLab CI/CD.
• Apply AWS Well-Architected Framework across platform design and operations.
• Collaborate with engineering teams to reduce toil and improve developer experience.

Skills

Platform engineering

AWS cloud

Kubernetes

GitOps

CI/CD

Crossplane

ArgoCD

Helm

Kustomize

Backstage

Pulumi

CDK

Terraform

GitHub Actions

GitLab CI/CD

CloudWatch

Prometheus

Grafana

Loki

X-Ray

Tools

Terraform

Pulumi

CDK

Crossplane

ArgoCD

Flux

Helm

Kustomize

GitHub Actions

GitLab CI/CD

CloudWatch

Prometheus

Grafana

Loki

X-Ray

Job description

Johannesburg, South Africa | Posted on 21/10/2026

Weare looking for a Senior Platform Engineer to design, build and operatescalable, production-grade platforms and self-service capabilities that empowerengineering teams. You will shape cloud-native foundations, automation andinternal developer platforms that improve reliability, speed and developerexperience.

Whatyou will do:

• Designand build self-service platforms, platform APIs, automation and system-leveltooling used by other engineering teams.
• Architectand operate highly available, secure and scalable cloud-native platforms onAWS.
• Implementand evolve Infrastructure as Code using Terraform, CDK, Pulumi and Crossplane.
• Buildand operate Kubernetes environments with strong GitOps practices (ArgoCD /Flux, Helm and Kustomize).
• DevelopKubernetes Operators and contribute to platform extensibility.
• Implementmonitoring, observability and reliability practices using CloudWatch,Prometheus, Grafana, Loki and X-Ray.
• DriveCI/CD and DevOps practices with tools such as GitHub Actions and GitLab CI/CD.
• ApplyAWS best practices and the Well-Architected Framework across platform designand operations.
• Collaboratewith engineering teams to reduce toil, improve developer experience and enableself-service consumption of platform capabilities.

Requirements

Whatyou bring:

• 5+years of experience in Platform Engineering, building self-service platformsand abstractions for engineering teams.
• 6+years of hands-on experience with public cloud, with deep expertise in AWS.
• 6+years of experience with containerisation and container platforms.
• Expertknowledge of AWS cloud architecture, services and the Well-ArchitectedFramework.
• Strongexperience with Kubernetes and container orchestration principles (CKAcertification preferred).
• Strongexperience with GitOps using ArgoCD / Flux and Helm / Kustomize.
• Hands-onexperience with Crossplane, ArgoCD and Backstage (non-negotiable).
• Strongexperience implementing monitoring and observability solutions (CloudWatch,Prometheus, Grafana, Loki, X-Ray).
• Strongunderstanding of DevOps practices and CI/CD tooling (GitHub Actions, GitLabCI/CD).
• Proventrack record of building complex, production-grade platforms and making themavailable for self-service use.
• Solidunderstanding of cloud-native systems, distributed systems and servicearchitecture trade-offs.