Senior Engineer

This is a U.S.-based position. All programs we support require U.S. citizenship to be eligible for employment. All work must be conducted within the continental U.S.

About Us

Raft is a customer-obsessed, non-traditional defense tech company dedicated to empowering U.S. military and government agencies with cutting-edge AI/ML and data solutions. We are a leader in autonomous data fusion and Agentic AI, with a focus on Distributed Data Systems, Platforms at Scale, and Complex Application Development. With headquarters in McLean, VA, our clients include innovative federal and public agencies. We build digital solutions that impact the lives of millions of Americans.

About the Role

We are seeking a Senior Engineer with an active Top Secret/SCI clearance to play a pivotal role in automating and orchestrating our critical infrastructure. This position is ideal for a technical expert passionate about deploying, managing, and optimizing system infrastructures using the latest technologies in system automation, container orchestration, and open-source applications. You'll be based in San Diego, CA and work on projects vital to national security and technological advancement.

Responsibilities

• Develop, package, validate, and maintain versioned enterprise platform releases.
• Assemble and manage release artifacts consisting of:
  • Infrastructure automation content (Ansible playbooks, roles, collections, Puppet modules, and related automation artifacts)
  • Kubernetes application deployments
  • Helm charts
  • Container images
  • RPM packages
  • Custom platform applications
  • Supporting software dependencies
• Manage versioning, dependency tracking, software inventories, Software Bills of Materials (SBOMs), and authoritative release manifests.
• Maintain configuration baselines and ensure all platform components are accurately versioned, traceable, auditable, and reproducible.
• Validate release artifacts to ensure completeness, integrity, and deployment readiness prior to release.
• Coordinate vulnerability scanning of container images, RPMs, operating system packages, and other software artifacts.
• Generate, maintain, and track Plans of Action and Milestones (POA&Ms) associated with identified software and infrastructure vulnerabilities.
• Ensure software supply chain integrity by validating that release artifacts originate from approved and trusted repositories and have successfully completed required security validation activities.
• Develop and maintain release documentation, including:
  • README.md files
  • Release Notes
  • Version manifests
  • Software Bills of Materials (SBOMs)
  • Installation procedures
  • Upgrade procedures
  • Rollback procedures
• Develop and maintain automated release workflows utilizing GitLab CI/CD and related DevSecOps tooling.
• Coordinate release promotion across development, integration, testing, staging, and production environments.
• Support software configuration management activities throughout the software development lifecycle.
• Collaborate with Platform Engineering, Cybersecurity, Software Development, and Operations teams to ensure consistent, secure, and repeatable platform deployments.
• Support RMF authorization and continuous monitoring activities by providing release documentation, software inventories, SBOMs, vulnerability documentation, POA&Ms, and other configuration management artifacts required to support accreditation.

Requirements

• Active Top Secret (TS) security clearance.
• Must be eligible to obtain and maintain Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) access.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or a related technical discipline and ten (10) years of relevant professional experience; or Master’s degree in a related technical discipline and five (5) years of relevant professional experience; or fifteen (15) years of relevant professional experience in lieu of a degree.
• Experience developing or maintaining infrastructure automation using technologies such as Ansible, Puppet, Terraform, or similar Infrastructure-as-Code solutions.
• Experience supporting Kubernetes-based environments and containerized applications.
• Experience with Git-based development workflows and source control.
• Experience developing or supporting CI/CD pipelines.
• Strong understanding of software configuration management, release engineering, artifact management, software supply chain management, and version control principles.
• Experience supporting Linux enterprise environments.
• Strong technical writing and documentation skills.

Preferred Skills

• Experience supporting classified or disconnected environments.
• Experience with GitLab CI/CD.
• Experience with Harbor or other OCI container registries.
• Experience with Helm and Kubernetes application lifecycle management.
• Experience with RKE2 or other enterprise Kubernetes distributions.
• Experience supporting software vulnerability management and container image scanning.
• Experience generating or maintaining Software Bills of Materials (SBOMs).
• Experience generating and maintaining POA&Ms for software and infrastructure vulnerabilities.
• Experience supporting RMF authorization packages and continuous monitoring activities.
• Familiarity with RMF, DISA STIGs, JSIG, secure software supply chain practices, and Configuration Management (CM) processes.
• Experience supporting enterprise Platform Engineering teams.

Schedule

Onsite in San Diego, CA. Relocation provided. May require up to 10% travel.

Pay

Salary Range: $100,000 - $185,000

Benefits

• Highly competitive salary
• Fully covered healthcare, dental, and vision coverage
• 401(k) with company match
• Take-as-you-need PTO + 14 paid holidays
• Generous Referral Bonuses
• And more!

Our Vision

We bridge the gap between humans and data through radical transparency and our obsession with the mission.

Our Customer Obsession

We approach every deliverable as if it's a product. We adopt a customer-obsessed mentality. As we grow, teams and employees will treat each other not only as teammates but as customers. We must live the customer-obsessed mindset, always. This will help us scale and translate to the interactions that our Rafters have with their clients and other product teams.

Our Culture

Raft’s core philosophy is Ubuntu: I Am, Because We Are. We support our "nadi" by elevating other Rafters. We work as a hyper-collaborative team where each team member brings a unique perspective. People make Raft special. We celebrate each other and our cognitive and cultural diversity. We are devoted to our practice of innovation and collaboration.