Platform Engineer (DevX)

Beacon Technologies is seeking an experienced and passionate Platform Engineer to join our growing team. In this role, you will be instrumental in designing, building, and maintaining our internal developer platform, built on Backstage. You will focus on enhancing developer productivity and creating a seamless experience for software development teams. The ideal candidate will have a strong software development background, a proactive and problem-solving mindset aligned with Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) principles, and a deep-seated passion for improving the developer experience (DevX).

• Proven experience in designing, implementing, and managing an internal developer portal, preferably with Backstage.io.
• A strong desire to improve the developer experience by creating self-service tools and streamlining workflows.
• Expertise in developing custom Backstage plugins and customizing the platform using TypeScript, Node.js, and React to meet the unique needs of our developers.
• Experience configuring and managing the Backstage Software Catalog to provide a unified view of services, documentation, and tooling.
• Ability to create and maintain software templates using Backstage's Scaffolder to standardize project creation and enforce best practices.
• Cloud and Infrastructure Management:
• Extensive experience with at least one major cloud provider (AWS, GCP) and familiarity with the other. This includes expertise in core services like VPC, IAM, S3, and managed Kubernetes (EKS, GKE).
• Proficiency in Infrastructure as Code (IaC) principles and hands-on experience with tools like Terraform to automate the provisioning and management of cloud resources.
• Experience with Crossplane.io to manage cloud services and infrastructure through a unified, Kubernetes-native API. This includes creating and managing composite resources to abstract away the complexity of the underlying infrastructure.
• Strong understanding of containerization technologies, including Docker and Kubernetes, and their ecosystems.
• CI/CD & DevOps Mindset:
• Solid experience with CI/CD principles and proficiency in building and maintaining pipelines using GitLab CI/CD.
• Experience integrating various tools into CI/CD pipelines to automate builds, testing, and deployments.
• Proficiency in managing software artifacts and dependencies using JFrog Artifactory. This includes creating and managing repositories and integrating Artifactory with our CI/CD pipelines.
• A strong scripting and automation skill set using languages like Python, Go, or Bash.
• Observability & Site Reliability Engineering (SRE):
• A solid understanding of SRE principles, including Service Level Objectives (SLOs), error budgets, and a focus on reliability, scalability, and performance.
• Hands-on experience with Datadog for full-stack observability, including setting up monitors, creating dashboards, and using APM for distributed tracing.
• A proactive approach to identifying and resolving platform issues before they impact developers.
• Experience in troubleshooting complex, distributed systems and a methodical approach to problem-solving.
• Software Development Fundamentals:
• Strong programming skills in languages such as Python, TypeScript, and JavaScript.
• Experience with web development fundamentals and API design (REST, GraphQL).
• A solid understanding of software development lifecycle (SDLC) best practices, including version control with Git.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Previous experience in a dedicated Platform Engineering or Developer Experience (DevX) team.
• Contributions to open-source projects, especially Backstage or other developer tools.
• Familiarity with securing CI/CD pipelines and implementing secure coding practices.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to work effectively with developers, product managers, and other stakeholders.
• A product-oriented mindset, treating the internal developer platform as a product with developers as your customers.