Staff Platform Engineer

District Partners is working with a growing technology company to find a Staff-level engineer to anchor the architecture of the cloud platform for one of their government programs. The cloud footprint has matured faster than its architecture standards, and the platform team needs a senior technical owner to bring discipline and scale for the next phase of growth. This role partners directly with engineering leadership on architecture and execution.

About the Role

This is a platform engineering role within a regulated, mission-critical infrastructure space. The team operates as a distributed function and owns the cloud infrastructure, cloud networking, hosted services, security tooling infrastructure, and directory services environment that support delivery.

The next phase focuses on hardening, scaling, and preparing the architecture to support a meaningful expansion of the customer footprint over the next 24 months. You will own cloud network design, IaC patterns, and security controls under regulated scrutiny. This is a role for a senior individual contributor who can own architecture, execution, and cross-functional representation.

Responsibilities

• Technical strategy and architecture for the platform end-to-end, from initial concept through delivery and ongoing maintenance
• Cloud network architecture across a multi-account AWS estate (VPCs, subnets, Route53, Transit Gateways, network firewalls, multi-account traffic routing)
• IaC backbone (CloudFormation or Terraform), Python or Node.js automation, and pipeline-driven infrastructure changes
• Replatforming and rehosting work as services are modernized and consolidated within AWS
• Identity and access architecture across the AWS estate, including IAM at scale, AWS Organizations, SCPs, and federated access patterns
• Windows domain environment, hybrid identity, and security tooling infrastructure
• Observability, reliability, and disaster recovery design (monitoring, alerting, SLOs, runbook automation)
• CI/CD pipeline standards and testing rigor for platform components
• Cross-functional representation of the platform function in technical and leadership forums across engineering, product, and operations
• Mentorship and technical leadership through design reviews, code reviews, and standards-setting

Environment

A small dev plus ops team within the program's engineering organization. The split is roughly 60% deep technical contribution on the hardest implementations and 40% planning, cross-team representation, scope definition, and process improvement. Expect a meaningful share of time in technical and leadership meetings; this is not a heads-down IC role. The current emphasis is expanding the production footprint, not greenfield product development. Additional mid-level and senior engineers are planned to grow the team beneath this hire over the coming year.

Requirements

• 7 to 15 years of professional engineering experience building, delivering, and operating scalable, secure, reliable cloud systems
• Deep AWS expertise across compute, systems management, databases, scaling strategies, and resilient multi-AZ architecture (EC2, SSM, RDS or equivalent, Auto Scaling, Load Balancers)
• Strong AWS cloud networking depth: VPCs, subnets, Route53, Transit Gateways, network firewalls, PrivateLink, peering, multi-account traffic routing
• Production-grade IaC in CloudFormation or Terraform, and proficiency in Python or Node.js
• Demonstrated experience replatforming or rehosting services and applications within AWS
• Working knowledge of security controls and compliance for regulated and federal workloads, including IAM at scale, KMS, secrets management, audit logging, and least-privilege patterns
• Track record at Staff or Principal level navigating significant technical ambiguity and leading large-scale cross-functional technical efforts
• Strong written and verbal communication; ability to represent the platform function in meetings constantly
• Ability to use AI tooling as an accelerator without depending on it for core technical thinking
• US citizenship required; must be able to obtain a federal network account, CAC, and Secret Clearance (may start without active clearance)
• Security-relevant certification (Security+, Cloud+, AWS Solutions Architect, or AWS DevOps Engineer) required for production access within 90 days of hire

Must-Haves

• Deep AWS expertise, including cloud networking at scale (VPCs, Route53, Transit Gateways, network firewalls, multi-account traffic routing)
• Production-grade Automation and IaC (CloudFormation or Terraform; Python or Node.js)
• Working knowledge of security controls and compliance for regulated workloads

Nice to Have

• Professional AWS Certifications (Solutions Architect Professional, DevOps Engineer Professional)
• Windows domain and Active Directory at depth (hybrid identity, GPO, DC operations)
• Observability and monitoring at scale: Splunk, Datadog, CloudWatch, Prometheus or Grafana
• Operational intelligence, industrial technology, or federal mission environments
• Container orchestration at production scale (Kubernetes or ECS)
• Formal SRE practice exposure, chaos engineering, or service mesh patterns
• Prior experience in a sub-100 person company, or comfort adapting from a larger org into one

Pay

$155,000 to $200,000 base, depending on experience

Schedule

Hybrid with regular in-office presence (Denver Metro)