Job Details

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

Who we are:

Raft ( is a customer-obsessed non-traditional small business with a purposeful focus on Distributed Data Systems, Platforms at Scale, and Complex Application Development, with headquarters in McLean, VA. Our range of clients includes innovative federal and public agencies leveraging design thinking, cutting-edge tech stack, and cloud-native ecosystem. We build digital solutions that impact the lives of millions of Americans.

We're looking for an experienced Staff Platform Engineer to support our customers and join our passionate team of high-impact problem solvers.

About the role:

The Staff Platform Engineer is an expert in cloud-hosted or on-premises Kubernetes application platforms. They excel in deploying Kubernetes and in the automation of platform management. The engineer will have substantial experience administering and managing platform services and supporting containerized applications as a subject-matter expert. With leadership skills, they will mentor junior to mid-level engineers and have strong communication skills for high-level stakeholder interaction.

What we are looking for:

• 8+ years of related hands-on experience or one of the following:
  • Associate's Degree in CS, SWE, CE, EE, or related field with 4+ years of related professional experience
  • Bachelor's Degree in CS, SWE, CE, EE or related field with 3+ years of related experience
  • Master's Degrees in CS, SWE, CE, EE or related field with 1+ years of related experience
• Significant experience creating and maintaining Kubernetes clusters through both managed services (e.g., AKS, EKS, or GKE) and self-managed installers (e.g., EKS-A, RKE2, or kubeadm)
• Experience managing and troubleshooting Kubernetes workloads at an enterprise scale
• Experience deploying and maintaining common platform services (e.g., Istio, Keycloak, Vault, Harbor, ArgoCD, and CertManager)
• Experience configuring metrics scraping and monitoring dashboards (e.g., Prometheus and Grafana configurations)
• Experience configuring log forwarding, filtering, and aggregation (e.g., Loki, FluentBit, or FluentD)
• Experience hardening Kubernetes clusters via RBAC, Audit Policies, admission controllers (e.g., OPA Gatekeeper or Kyverno), image scanning (e.g., Trivy, Sysdig, or NeuVector), NetworkPolicies, CIS benchmark, and CISA/NSA Hardening Guidance
• Experience deploying, maintaining and monitoring cloud-based compute resources (e.g., AWS EC2 and EBS, Azure Virtual Machines and premium storage, etc.)
• Able to obtain a Security+ certification within the first 90 days of employment with Raft

Highly preferred:

• Experience administering Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform
• Current Security+ CE (or equivalent DoD 8570.01/8140.03 certification)
• Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist

Clearance Requirements:

Work Type:

• May require up to 25% travel

Salary Range:

• $140,000 - $210,000
• The determination of compensation is predicated upon a candidate's comprehensive experience, demonstrated skill, and proven abilities

What we will offer you:

• Highly competitive salary
• Fully covered healthcare, dental, and vision coverage
• 401(k) and company match
• Take as you need PTO + 11 paid holidays
• Remote, hybrid, and flexible work options
• And More!

We're an equal opportunity employer. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran or disability status.