Platform Engineer

Defense Unicorns is seeking a Platform Engineer to support the deployment and maintenance of UDS within a secure, bare-metal environment. You will serve as a bridge between application teams and the platform, advocating best practices and helping ensure that the platform is reliable, secure, and scalable. The ideal candidate is a strong problem-solver with hands-on experience in Kubernetes, bare-metal or on-premises infrastructure, and deploying applications onto Kubernetes-based platforms.

Responsibilities:

The listed responsibilities are not exhaustive and additional responsibilities may be assigned based on the evolving needs of the organization. We are seeking a dynamic individual who is able to adapt and take on new responsibilities as they arise.

• Support the architecture, deployment, configuration, and testing of bare-metal infrastructure, including GPU compute, storage, and networking
• Deploy, configure, maintain, and troubleshoot UDS and Kubernetes-based platform services
• Develop and manage infrastructure as code (IaC) and configuration to enable consistent, repeatable deployments
• Support secure software delivery, including container images, registries, packages, and deployment artifacts
• Collaborate with mission stakeholders, partner organizations, and Defense Unicorns engineering teams to identify technical requirements and resolve deployment challenges
• Collaborate with mission stakeholders, partner organizations, and Defense Unicorns engineering teams to identify technical requirements and resolve platform challenges

Travel Expectations/Requirements: 15-25%

Preferred Experience and Qualifications:

• Hold or be eligible for a security clearance
• Experience deploying and operating Kubernetes or containerized platforms in bare-metal or on-premises environments (deploying, managing, and troubleshooting clusters and workloads)
• Experience with infrastructure as code tools (e.g., Terraform, Pulumi, or similar)
• Proficiency with CI/CD tooling, particularly GitLab CI or equivalent pipeline platforms
• Working knowledge of Linux/Unix operating systems and command-line administration
• Experience with cloud platforms, preferably AWS (EC2, EKS, IAM, S3, VPC)
• Experience supporting GPU-enabled infrastructure or workloads
• Ability to read and write YAML fluently for Kubernetes manifests, CRDs, Helm charts, and pipeline configurations
• Strong communication and collaboration skills, including the ability to work effectively with partner engineering teams
• Possess or ability to obtain a DoD 8570 IAT II certification (e.g., Security+ CE)