Platform Engineer Jobs in Illinois (NOW HIRING)

Job Title: Platform Engineer

POSITION OVERVIEW

We are seeking a highly skilled Platform Engineer to join our Engineering team. In this role, you will design, build, and maintain the internal developer platform that enables our engineering organization to ship software reliably and at scale. You will own the full platform lifecycle — from infrastructure provisioning and GitOps delivery pipelines to observability and developer experience — working across our multi-cloud environments.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Infrastructure & Cloud

• Design, provision, and maintain cloud infrastructure across Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud Platform using infrastructure-as-code tooling (e.g., Terraform, Pulumi, CloudFormation).
• Manage Terraform Cloud workspaces, module registries, and policy frameworks (Sentinel / OPA) to enforce governance at scale.
• Architect and operate Kubernetes clusters across multiple cloud providers, including node pool management, autoscaling, networking (CNI/service mesh), and storage.
• Define and manage cloud landing zones, account structures, networking baselines, and identity/access frameworks aligned to security standards.

GitOps & Continuous Delivery

• Operate and evolve GitOps delivery pipelines using Flux to manage cluster state, Helm releases, and environment promotions from a single source of truth in version control (e.g., GitHub).
• Build, maintain, and optimize CI/CD pipelines with pipeline-as-code tooling (e.g., Harness, GitHub Actions) covering build, test, security scanning, and deployment workflows.
• Champion GitOps best practices across engineering teams, providing templates, documentation, and enablement.

Observability & Reliability

• Implement and maintain full-stack observability using platforms such as Dynatrace, including distributed tracing, infrastructure monitoring, log management, synthetic monitoring, and SLO/SLI tracking.
• Define alerting strategies, runbooks, and on-call escalation paths; drive incident response and post-incident reviews.
• Establish and track platform reliability metrics (availability, error rate, latency) and lead initiatives to close gaps.

Developer Experience & Platform Engineering

• Build and maintain internal developer platform capabilities: self-service tooling, golden-path templates, shared libraries, and developer portals.
• Reduce cognitive load for application teams by abstracting infrastructure complexity behind opinionated, well-documented interfaces.
• Collaborate closely with security, networking, and application engineering teams to align on standards and integrate platform capabilities into the SDLC.

Security & Compliance

• Embed security controls into platform tooling: secrets management, image scanning, policy enforcement, RBAC, and audit logging.
• Support compliance requirements (SOC 2, PCI-DSS, etc.) through infrastructure controls, audit trails, and documentation.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• 5+ years of experience in a platform engineering, DevOps, or site reliability engineering role.
• Strong hands-on experience with Kubernetes in production across at least one major cloud provider (Azure AKS, AWS EKS, or Google Cloud Platform GKE).
• Proficiency with infrastructure-as-code tools, especially Terraform and Terraform Cloud (workspaces, remote state, module registry, policy as code).
• Demonstrated experience with GitOps principles and continuous delivery tooling (e.g., Flux, ArgoCD, or equivalent).
• Experience building and maintaining CI/CD pipelines using tools such as Harness, GitHub Actions, Jenkins, or equivalent platforms.
• Working knowledge of multi-cloud architectures across two or more of: Azure, AWS, Google Cloud Platform.
• Proficiency with at least one scripting/programming language (Python, Go, Bash) for automation and tooling development.
• Experience with observability platforms (e.g., Dynatrace, Datadog, PrometheGrafana stack) and a solid understanding of the three pillars of observability.
• Strong understanding of networking fundamentals (DNS, TLS, load balancing, VPNs, VPC/VNet peering).
• Familiarity with security concepts: RBAC, secrets management (Vault, cloud-native KMS), image signing, and supply-chain security.
• Comfortable working with container image registries, Helm charts, and Kubernetes manifests.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to document complex systems clearly.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Experience with service mesh technologies (e.g., Istio, Linkerd, Consul Connect, Kong Mesh / Kuma).
• Familiarity with developer portal frameworks (e.g., Backstage) and internal developer platform (IDP) design patterns.
• Knowledge of FinOps practices and cloud cost optimization strategies.
• Experience with GitOps-based secret management (e.g., Sealed Secrets, External Secrets Operator, SOPS).
• Contributions to open-source projects or active engagement with the CNCF ecosystem.
• Relevant certifications: CKA/CKAD/CKS, HashiCorp Terraform Associate, AWS Solutions Architect, Azure Administrator, or Google Cloud Platform Professional Cloud Architect.
• Experience in a regulated industry (retail, finance, healthcare) with compliance-driven infrastructure requirements.

TOOLS & TECHNOLOGIES

Source Control & Collaboration: GitHub (or equivalent version control platform), code review, branch protection, Actions

Infrastructure as Code: Terraform / Terraform Cloud, module registries, Sentinel / OPA policy as code

Container Orchestration: Kubernetes (AKS, EKS, GKE), Helm, Kustomize, container runtimes

GitOps & Delivery: Flux (or ArgoCD), Harness (or equivalent pipeline platform), GitHub Actions

Observability: Dynatrace (or equivalent: Datadog, PrometheGrafana), distributed tracing, log aggregation

Cloud Platforms: Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (Google Cloud Platform)

Security & Secrets: HashiCorp Vault, cloud-native KMS, External Secrets Operator, image scanning

Scripting & Automation: Python, Go, Bash, YAML/JSON, Jsonnet