Senior Platform Engineer

Responsibilities

Internal Developer Platform

• Build and own the internal developer platform as a product, so researchers and engineers can provision what they need and start work quickly.
• Design and build the services behind data analysis pipelines, the data warehouse, dashboards, research code environments, and the web apps that expose HPC simulation to non-specialists.
• Extend Open OnDemand and related portals, and build what's missing where off-the-shelf tools fall short.
• Own AI developer tooling, its budget, and provisioning workflows.
• Set and maintain standards that give engineers autonomy while keeping the platform coherent and governable.

Systems & Software Engineering

• Architect and write platform services, control planes, APIs, and data-pipeline frameworks.
• Build reusable components and set software standards that match the needs of active R&D projects.
• Translate requirements from Physics, Engineering, and Controls teams into systems that scale and stay maintainable.
• Treat reliability, observability, and cost as design requirements.

HPC & Infrastructure

• Provide the platform layer over HPC clusters, job scheduling, and distributed filesystems so researchers can run simulation and analysis themselves.
• Build and maintain secure cloud infrastructure (AWS/GCP/Azure), managed as infrastructure-as-code.
• Build observability, alerting, and incident-response systems across on-prem and cloud resources.
• Manage cloud costs proactively through architecture choices, reserved capacity, and observability.
• Lead migrations, upgrades, and modernization with minimal disruption to active experiments.

Documentation & Mentorship

• Write clear documentation, runbooks, and operational procedures so others can operate and extend the platform.
• Mentor junior platform engineers and the cross-functional engineers who build on the platform.
• Set technical direction for infrastructure as code, observability, and system resilience.

Qualifications

• Education: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Physics, Applied Mathematics, or related field; advanced degree preferred.
• Experience: 7+ years of experience in platform, infrastructure, or software engineering, including building internal tools or platforms used by other engineers.
• Strong software engineering fundamentals. Proficiency in Python, Rust, and/or C++.
• Experience building internal platforms or tooling that measurably improved team productivity.
• Hands-on experience with Linux and infrastructure automation (Ansible, Terraform, or equivalent).
• Experience with cloud infrastructure (AWS/GCP/Azure). Familiarity with HPC clusters and job scheduling is a plus.
• A track record of designing systems for reliability, observability, and scale.
• Experience with containerization and orchestration (Kubernetes, Docker, or similar).
• Experience mentoring engineers and leading cross-functional projects.
• Clear communication, including explaining technical tradeoffs to non-technical colleagues.
• Must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. permanent resident (current Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee of granted asylum

Desired

• Experience building data platforms, data warehouses, or analytics and dashboard infrastructure.
• Prior experience in scientific computing or research environments.
• Familiarity with Open OnDemand or similar research computing portals.
• Experience with secure enclave architectures, identity management (OIDC, LDAP), or export-controlled data.
• Domain background in manufacturing, experimental physics, or fusion energy. We don't require it — strong generalists ramp quickly here — but a head start is welcome.
• Experience managing and optimizing cloud infrastructure.