Platform Engineer

• As a Platform Engineer, you’ll be the technical backbone of the company.
• You’ll own the product architecture, write production code daily, and make the foundational technical decisions that everything else gets built on.
• This is a hands-on, high-autonomy role for someone who wants to build a company from the ground floor, with the maturity and ambition to grow into a CTO as we scale.
• This role is uniquely suited for someone at the intersection of:
• Deep, firsthand experience with the DoD’s Authority to Operate (ATO) process.
• Strong software engineering fundamentals are necessary. Architect systems, ship production code, and building things that scale.
• A conviction that AI development tools are a force multiplier. You will use them daily.

Responsibilities:

• Own the full technical stack from day one - architecture, infrastructure, deployment, and product development.
• Build tools that make the ATO process faster, more transparent, and less painful for defense software teams.
• Leverage AI-assisted development tools (Codex, Claude Code, Cursor, etc.) as a core part of your workflow.
• Collaborate directly with DoD stakeholders, compliance teams, and end users.
• Evaluate build-or-buy trade-offs, select the technology stack, and establish engineering practices.
• Contribute to security documentation, architecture diagrams, and compliance artifacts for government authorization.

• U.S. Citizenship; capable of obtaining and holding a U.S. security clearance (active clearance is a plus).
• Direct experience with the DoD ATO process - you’ve shepherded a system through authorization, worked with ISSMs/ISSOs, or built tools in this space.
• 5+ years of professional software development with demonstrated ability to ship production systems.
• Proficiency with modern development stacks (cloud-native, containers, CI/CD, IaC) and at least one major language (Python, Go, TypeScript, Rust, etc.).
• Active and enthusiastic user of AI-powered development tools.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with NIST RMF, STIG compliance, or FedRAMP authorization frameworks.
• Prior work at a defense tech startup or DoD software factory (Kessel Run, Platform One, AI2C, Army SWF, etc.).
• Familiarity with GovCloud environments (AWS GovCloud, Azure Government, IL4/IL5).
• Background in DevSecOps - automated security scanning, SBOM generation, continuous monitoring.
• Experience building or contributing to open-source compliance or security tooling.