ABOUT THE ROLE:
Second Front Systems (2F) is seeking a motivated Director of Platform Engineering to join our Engineering team to oversee and guide the direction and strategy for the Game Warden platform. We are a fast-growing entrepreneurial team working at the convergence of technology and national security. The work will be dynamic and wide-ranging, overseeing the development, deployment, scaling, and operation of our Game Warden platform. You will be an integrated, integral, member of the senior leadership team, collaboratively shaping platform trajectory and operations.
The Director of Platform Engineering will focus on the strategic, management, and operational aspects of the engineering team. This role will report to the Chief Product Officer and will form a dyad with our Principal Engineer, who is our domain technical expert with deep knowledge on our processes, systems, and trajectory of innovation. The Director of Platform Engineering will oversee the platform engineering function, working closely with the Principal Engineer, cross-functional teams, and stakeholders to ensure the stability, scalability, and efficiency of the platform. This role has a specialized focus on DevOps and is responsible for collaboratively guiding the direction and strategy for how the Game Warden platform is built and maintained, managing budgets and resources, and ensuring that the platform meets the needs of the organization.
Note: This position requires U.S. citizenship due to government contract requirements.
What You’ll Do:
- Strategic Leadership:
- Collaboratively develop and drive the overall platform engineering strategy, aligning it with organizational goals and industry best practices.
- Collaborate with Executive Leadership to ensure that technology initiatives support the company's objectives.
- Team Management:
- Build, lead, and mentor a high-performing platform engineering team.
- Foster a collaborative and innovative culture within the team, promoting continuous learning and development.
- Collaboration:Work closely with cross-functional teams, including product and security, to ensure a holistic approach to platform engineering.
- Collaborate with stakeholders to understand business requirements and translate them into technical solutions.
- Risk Management:
- Develop and implement risk management strategies to safeguard the integrity and security of the platform.
- Stay abreast of emerging threats and technologies to proactively address potential risks.
- Implementation and Scalability:
- Design and guide the implementation of resilient and scalable solutions across multiple cloud platforms.
- Oversee the design and evolution of a robust DevOps framework across the organization.
- Oversee integration and automation of security processes and security controls into the CI/CD pipeline.
- Oversee the management of a run-time environment of containerized applications using Kubernetes, ensuring scalability and reliability.
Skills You’ll Bring to Our Team:
- Extensive experience in leading successful engineering teams and delivering impactful results in a high-growth environment.
- Ability to inspire and motivate teams, build trust, and foster a collaborative culture while messaging about how people's efforts make a difference to the broader organization.
- Effective communication skills with senior management and executive teams, ability to articulate engineering roadmap, progress, and evolution to key stakeholders, including executive leadership.A track record of delivering significant features and enhancements for PaaS.
- Analytical thinking and a strong understanding of using data to inform engineering decisions.
- Exceptional problem-solving skills and the ability to address complex challenges.
- Commitment to exploring innovative solutions and tackling challenges.A humble, collaborative and team-first spirit focused on team growth and a passion for mission and innovation.
- Ability to break down ambiguous problems to well-reasoned and novel solutions.
- Willingness to explore and own initiatives.
Preferred Qualifications:
- A proven track record (5 to 7 years) of leading engineering teams and overseeing the development and operation of PaaS with an in-depth knowledge of best practices, methodologies, and tools.
- DevOps expertise, proven ability ensuring the seamless integration of development, security, and operations practices.
- Experience with AWS, GCP, and Azure.
- Experience with CNCF tooling, including container orchestration (e.g., Kubernetes), service mesh (e.g., Istio), monitoring and observability (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana), and CI/CD.
- Familiarity with infrastructure as code technologies, such as Pulumi.
- Familiarity with programming languages such as Golang, Rust, and Python.
- Experience leading and mentoring multiple engineering teams, fostering a collaborative and high-performing culture. Effective communication, stakeholder management, and cross-functional collaboration skills are essential.
- Demonstrated commitment to continuous learning, staying abreast of industry trends, emerging technologies, and engineering best practices to drive innovation and competitive advantage.
- Have a strong interest in matters of national security.
Success at 2F Looks Like:
- Viewing obstacles as opportunities for growth
- Having a bias toward action and tangible, measurable results
- Striving to be both compassionate and direct with your feedback
- Being team-oriented and inclusive with your actions
WHO WE ARE
At Second Front Systems (2F), we equip defense and national security professionals for long-term, continuous competition for access to emerging technologies. Founded by two former U.S. Marines with firsthand experience of the dangers outdated technology poses in combat, our team is dedicated to fast-tracking government access to disruptive, commercially-proven technology for U.S. national security missions.
Our Game Warden product, a fully managed and compliant DevSecOps platform, accelerates the process for accrediting software as a service (SaaS) applications for government use.
Learn how 2F can help you make an impact on national security missions at www.secondfront.com
ONE LAST THING…
Research shows that candidates from underrepresented backgrounds often don't apply for roles if they don't meet all the criteria
We strongly encourage you to apply if you’re interested—We'd love to know how you can amplify our team with your unique experience.
