Senior Tier 3 Platform Engineer

Peraton is a next-generation national security company that drives missions of consequence spanning the globe and extending to the farthest reaches of the galaxy. As the world’s leading mission capability integrator and transformative enterprise IT provider, we deliver trusted, highly differentiated solutions and technologies to protect our nation and allies. Peraton operates at the critical nexus between traditional and nontraditional threats across all domains: land, sea, space, air, and cyberspace. The company serves as a valued partner to essential government agencies and supports every branch of the U.S. armed forces. Each day, our employees do the can’t be done by solving the most daunting challenges facing our customers. Visit peraton.com to learn how we’re keeping people around the world safe and secure.

Schedule: Rotating shifts within a 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM, seven-day on-site coverage window, plus participation in a shared after-hours on-call rotation.

About the Role

Peraton is seeking a Senior Platform Engineer to lead technical implementation, operation, and sustainment activities for a mission-critical enterprise software platform supporting an Intelligence Community customer. The platform delivers a standardized developer and user experience across multiple classified enclaves, leveraging a zero trust, hub-and-spoke architecture.

 

The Senior Platform Engineer will independently design, implement, and maintain platform infrastructure, automation, and shared services while serving as a senior Tier 3 escalation resource for complex enterprise incidents. This role will take ownership of critical platform components, lead root cause analysis, and drive engineering improvements that strengthen platform availability, security, and operational performance. The Senior Platform Engineer will also provide technical guidance to junior engineers and Tier 2 support personnel while collaborating with architecture, cybersecurity, and operations teams to support mission-critical platform services.

What You Will Do

• Design, deploy, configure, and sustain enterprise platform components across hybrid cloud and on-premises environments, including Kubernetes-based container orchestration platforms.

• Own the technical implementation and operational health of assigned platform components, shared services, and infrastructure capabilities.

• Develop and maintain infrastructure as code using Terraform, Ansible, or similar technologies to automate infrastructure provisioning and configuration management.

• Design, implement, and maintain CI/CD pipelines that support secure, automated, and repeatable platform deployments.

• Implement and maintain zero trust security controls, including identity-aware access, network segmentation, and least-privilege policies.

• Lead technical onboarding activities for new mission tenants, applications, and shared services, ensuring integration with established platform standards and architecture.

• Identify and implement improvements to platform reliability, scalability, performance, and operational efficiency.

• Establish and improve observability capabilities, including centralized logging, metrics, alerting, and operational dashboards.

• Serve as a senior Tier 3 escalation resource for complex incidents across compute, storage, networking, identity, and container infrastructure.

• Independently troubleshoot and resolve complex production issues across Linux systems, cloud infrastructure, Kubernetes, networking, and identity and access management.

• Lead root cause analysis for significant incidents, develop corrective action plans, and coordinate remediation across engineering teams, vendors, and partner organizations.

• Identify recurring operational issues and develop automation, engineering solutions, and updated runbooks to prevent future incidents.

• Coordinate incident response activities and technical escalations to ensure resolution within established service levels.

• Partner with cybersecurity personnel to maintain security controls, continuous monitoring capabilities, and technical evidence supporting RMF authorization and continuous ATO.

• Provide technical mentorship and guidance to Mid-Level engineers and Tier 2 support personnel, establishing consistent troubleshooting and operational practices.

• Maintain technical documentation, operational procedures, and knowledge base content to support platform sustainment.

• Participate in technical planning and operational coordination activities to support platform availability across the enterprise.

• Participate in rotating on-site shifts and the shared after-hours on-call rotation to support continuous platform operations.

Location: This position is fully onsite in Chantilly, VA.

Required Qualifications

• Active TS/SCI clearance with Polygraph.

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related technical field, with 8+ years of relevant experience. Additional 4 years of relevant experience may be substituted for a degree.

• Extensive hands-on experience operating, engineering, and troubleshooting production containerized workloads using Kubernetes or a Kubernetes-based platform.

• Experience designing and supporting infrastructure across at least one major cloud environment (AWS, Azure, or a government cloud region) and hybrid cloud or on-premises environments.

• Experience developing and maintaining infrastructure as code using Terraform, Ansible, or similar automation technologies.

• Experience designing, implementing, and maintaining CI/CD pipelines and automated deployment processes.

• Demonstrated ability to independently troubleshoot complex technical issues across Linux systems, networking (DNS, routing, load balancing, and firewalls), container infrastructure, and identity and access management.

• Experience independently managing production incidents, problem management, and technical escalations under established service levels.

• Experience leading root cause analysis, developing corrective actions, and implementing solutions to prevent recurring production issues.

• Experience providing technical guidance or mentorship to engineering or operations personnel.

• DoD 8140 / 8570 IAT Level II certification, such as Security+ CE, or the ability to obtain the required certification within the established timeframe.

• Ability to work rotating shifts within the established seven-day on-site coverage window and participate in the shared after-hours on-call rotation.

Desired Qualifications

• Experience supporting enterprise platforms across multiple classification levels or security enclaves, including cross-domain data movement.

• Experience implementing zero trust architecture principles and security controls within enterprise cloud environments.

• Experience with IT service management (ITSM) tools, including ServiceNow.

• Experience implementing and maintaining observability platforms such as Prometheus, Grafana, Splunk, or Elastic.

• Experience supporting Risk Management Framework (RMF) authorization activities, continuous monitoring, or continuous Authority to Operate (cATO).

• Kubernetes certifications, such as CKA, CKAD, or CKS, and/or a cloud professional certification.

• Prior experience supporting Intelligence Community or Department of Defense mission programs.

$112,000 - $179,000. This represents the typical salary range for this position. Salary is determined by various factors, including but not limited to, the scope and responsibilities of the position, the individual’s experience, education, knowledge, skills, and competencies, as well as geographic location and business and contract considerations. Depending on the position, employees may be eligible for overtime, shift differential, and a discretionary bonus in addition to base pay.

Peraton offers eligible employees a variety of benefits including medical, dental, vision, life, health savings account, short/long term disability, EAP, parental leave, 401(k), paid time off (PTO) for vacation, and company paid holidays. A full listing of available benefits can be viewed at https://www.careers.peraton.com/benefits.

EEO: Equal opportunity employer, including disability and protected veterans, or other characteristics protected by law.