Lead Platform Engineer

Job Title: Lead Platform Engineer

Location: Bethesda, MD (Onsite)

Duration: Direct Hire

Salary Range: $140K to $180K/annum

Job Description

We are seeking a Lead Platform Engineer to join a growing technology organization responsible for building and supporting a highly scalable platform environment. This role combines hands-on engineering, production support, and platform architecture, with a strong emphasis on Kubernetes-based infrastructure and developer platform enablement.

The ideal candidate will operate as a senior technical leader, responsible for maintaining critical production systems while designing and building scalable platform solutions that improve developer productivity, system reliability, and operational efficiency.

This role requires deep expertise in Kubernetes, Kafka, CI/CD pipelines, and workflow orchestration, along with the ability to mentor engineers and drive platform engineering best practices.

Key Responsibilities

• Manage and optimize multi-cloud Kubernetes environments across Azure AKS and Google GKE, including cluster design, RBAC, networking, upgrades, and cost optimization.
• Design, implement, and maintain CI/CD pipelines using Jenkins and GitHub Actions, ensuring secure artifact management, automated deployment, and rollback strategies.
• Develop and maintain platform tooling and internal developer platform capabilities using Backstage, enabling service catalog management, templates, and golden path architectures.
• Implement and manage Argo Workflows for large-scale job orchestration and data pipelines, including DAG configuration and resource management.
• Operate and maintain distributed systems including Kafka, CockroachDB, Couchbase, and Elasticsearch, focusing on performance, resilience, and disaster recovery.
• Establish and enhance observability practices using Prometheus, Grafana, and Tempo by defining SLOs, SLIs, alerting standards, and operational runbooks.
• Develop platform tooling and automation using Go, Node.js, and C#/.NET.
• Provide production support, incident response, and troubleshooting for engineering teams.
• Mentor engineers and contribute to platform engineering strategy and technical direction.
• Partner with product, engineering, and security teams to ensure scalable, secure, and reliable infrastructure.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.
• 5–8+ years of experience in platform engineering, DevOps, or infrastructure engineering.
• Deep expertise in Kubernetes operations and container orchestration.
• Strong experience with Kafka-based distributed systems.
• Experience implementing CI/CD pipelines using Jenkins and GitHub Actions.
• Hands-on experience with Argo Workflows for orchestration.
• Experience with observability tooling such as Prometheus, Grafana, and distributed tracing systems.
• Experience managing distributed databases or search systems (CockroachDB, Couchbase, Elasticsearch or similar).
• Proficiency in at least one programming language such as Go, Node.js, or C#/.NET.
• Strong experience with Linux systems and production infrastructure.

Ideal Candidate Profile

• Senior engineer with deep Kubernetes architecture and operational expertise.
• Strong background in platform engineering and developer enablement.
• Experience supporting high-scale distributed systems and cloud infrastructure.
• Comfortable operating in a hands-on lead role while mentoring engineers.
• Strong understanding of security, reliability, and operational best practices in production environments.
• Certifications such as CKA, CKAD, or CKS are highly desirable.

Dexian is a leading provider of staffing, IT, and workforce solutions with over 12,000 employees and 70 locations worldwide. As one of the largest IT staffing companies and the 2nd largest minority-owned staffing company in the U.S., Dexian was formed in 2023 through the merger of DISYS and Signature Consultants. Combining the best elements of its core companies, Dexian's platform connects talent, technology, and organizations to produce game-changing results that help everyone achieve their ambitions and goals. Dexian's brands include Dexian DISYS, Dexian Signature Consultants, Dexian Government Solutions, Dexian Talent Development and Dexian IT Solutions. Visit https://dexian.com/ to learn more. Dexian is an Equal Opportunity Employer that recruits and hires qualified candidates without regard to race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, disability, or veteran status.