Platform Engineer

EMPLOYER IS A CONTRACTOR FOR THE U.S. GOVERNMENT. THIS POSITION REQUIRES U.S. CITIZENSHIP. THIS POSITION IS ONSITE LOCATED IN SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS. ACTIVE SECRET CLEARANCE REQUIRED IN ORDER TO APPLY. 

Role Description: 

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:

• Active Secret clearance required. 

• 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)