Director of Platform Engineering

We are looking for an experienced, product-focused Director of Platform Engineering to join our internal innovation lab.

You will be a hands-on technical leader of small, autonomous teams exploring new ideas and building products from scratch, ranging from internal prototypes to net-new digital services that may grow into their own offerings. The Director of Platform Engineering will be a key voice in shaping how we design, build, and scale modern applications in a fast-moving R&D environment. Reporting to our Chief Innovation Officer (CINO), you’ll bring depth in full-stack product engineering, DevSecOps best practices, and pragmatic architecture choices that balance speed of learning with long-term maintainability.

This role will be responsible for building the foundational platform for our innovation lab from the ground up, enabling our teams to quickly test, iterate, and ship new modular products. The Director of Platform Engineering will own our Google Cloud Platform (GCP) infrastructure, security, application deployment, and developer productivity platforms, ensuring that the innovation lab technology foundation is reliable, secure, and a delight for developers to use. You will help shape and lead a future platform engineering function as our products mature and our teams grow.

This will also be an externally facing role that will regularly collaborate with customers, partners, and vendors to lead security reviews to ensure compliance and trust. The Director of Platform Engineering will be responsible for evaluating and implementing modern tooling and emerging technologies—from serverless architectures, to AI-assisted development and no-code prototyping—to accelerate innovation and improve efficiency.

If you’re passionate about improving lives through digital products and services, then Coforma is a great company for you.

$170,980 to $183,340 Annual Salary + Benefits + Growth Potential

Placement within this range will be based on the competency level of the candidate. An offer will be made at one of the following tiers:

Tier 1: $170,980 — Meets minimum qualification/experience requirements. Beyond onboarding, will need additional guidance and training to perform key responsibilities of the role.

Tier 2: $177,984 — Experienced and fully-competent. Beyond onboarding, can independently perform key responsibilities of the role.

Tier 3: $183,340 — Highly experienced and can perform all responsibilities of the role at a higher level than expected once onboarding is completed.

To honor our company-wide equitable pay system, the posted salary range and corresponding tier salaries are non-negotiable.

This is a US-based remote position open to applicants in the states listed below. Some travel may be required.

Note: to ensure we remain compliant with all state, county, and local employment and tax regulations, applicants must currently reside in one of the following states to be considered for employment with Coforma. This list will be updated periodically as our PeopleOps team works to open up hiring in additional states.

∙ Arizona

∙ California

∙ District of Columbia

∙ Florida

∙ Georgia

∙ Idaho

∙ Illinois

∙ Maine

∙ Maryland

∙ Massachusetts

∙ Montana

∙ Nevada

∙ New Jersey

∙ New York

∙ North Carolina

∙ Oregon

∙ South Carolina

∙ Tennessee

∙ Texas

∙ Virginia

∙ Washington

∙ Wisconsin

Role Overview

This is a strategic and a tactical role responsible for defining the vision and direction for our innovation lab as well as executing the strategy to move forward successfully. The main responsibilities for this role are segmented into the following sections:

• Serve as technical lead for early-stage innovation lab projects, guiding design and implementation decisions
• Build high-performing platform and Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) teams responsible for developing and growing our products and services
• Mentor engineers and collaborators, sharing best practices and fostering a culture of experimentation and continuous learning
• Work closely with Product, Design, and Delivery teams, as well as the CINO to shape technical direction for prototypes and new products
• Define and execute the vision for innovation lab’s core platform with a focus on operational excellence, reliability, and developer productivity
• Consult with our Growth and Delivery teams to take learnings from the innovation lab and help shape a company-wide DevSecOps practice and potential new service offerings
• Identify and adopt modern tools and architectures that improve efficiency, reliability, and time-to-market

• Lead the implementation of our GCP environment with a focus on performance, resiliency, and cost efficiency
• Implement and monitor Service Level Objectives (SLOs), Service Level Indicators (SLIs), and error budgets to maintain reliability
• Manage Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, Pulumi) for consistent, secure deployments

• Act as the primary technology contact for security assessments with customers, affiliates, and other partners
• Ensure compliance with SOC 2, HIPAA, NIST 800-53, and other regulatory standards
• Build and manage trusted relationships with partner technology and security teams, key vendors, and technology providers

• Own and enhance in-house developer tooling to provide visibility into security, deployments, repositories, and operational health
• Oversee CI/CD pipelines and deployment automation for containerized and serverless applications
• Improve development environments, reduce build/deploy friction, and streamline onboarding
• Enhance observability, monitoring, and incident response capabilities

• Build relationships with our CINO, core innovation lab leads, engineers, Growth team leads, and Delivery leads on the contract team
• Audit current infrastructure decisions, security posture, tooling, and developer workflows
• Conduct a gap assessment of current controls, policies, and infrastructure against SOC 2 Trust Services Criteria (security, availability, confidentiality) and begin selecting core tooling to support SOC 2 controls (e.g., logging/monitoring stack, access management, asset inventory)
• Identify platform components that must be architected with SOC 2 in mind (identity/auth, logging, incident response, data handling)
• Define what “platform” means in the innovation lab context (core platform capabilities, minimum viable primitives, etc.) and begin shaping the technical north star and principles for the innovation lab infrastructure to enable developer productivity
• Identify immediate gaps: identity/auth, CI/CD, observability, cost controls, network architecture

• Stand up baseline GCP environment with IaC, standardized environments, cost monitoring, and deployment workflows
• Implement MVP developer platform components (GitHub Actions pipelines, container registry, secrets management)
• Establish baseline security controls
• Run first internal “customer” onboarding: get a prototype team building on the platform
• Formalize initial DevSecOps playbook, documentation, and internal developer experience roadmap
• Assist in preparing annual budgets for the innovation lab

• Launch v1 of the innovation lab platform powering active prototype(s)
• Deliver tangible improvements to developer velocity and reliability (measured time-to-deploy, time-to-debug, etc.)
• Establish SLOs/SLIs for platform services
• Lead external security or customer review using platform architecture as proof point
• Propose organizational shape of future platform engineering function and hiring plan, and present platform vision and roadmap to leadership, aligning innovation infrastructure with the broader company direction

• Minimum of 10 years of experience in technology infrastructure, platform engineering, or SRE leadership roles in a product-oriented environment
• 4+ years of experience leading technical direction or serving as tech lead/architect on complex products
• Proven experience managing GCP-based infrastructure at scale and a track record of developing and maintaining internal platform tools for developers
• Demonstrated ability to lead external security reviews and navigate compliance requirements
• Excellent leadership, communication, and stakeholder management skills
• Capable of delivering infrastructure that is highly scalable, available, and performant
• Comfortable with ambiguity: Able to support experiments, measure outcomes, and adjust course quickly
• Skilled at tailoring technical communication for executive leadership and non-technical stakeholders with the ability to explain complex trade-offs in plain language to influence decisions and align teams
• Full-time resident of the contiguous United States (must be legally authorized to work in the US now and in the future without sponsorship)

• IaC expertise (Terraform, Pulumi)
• Containers and orchestration platforms (Docker, Kubernetes) and serverless architectures
• Programming or scripting language (Python, JavaScript, Bash)
• SRE principles, DevSecOps, and DevEx improvement practices
• Modern CI/CD pipelines (e.g., GitHub Actions, Google Cloud Deploy)
• High-traffic consumer web or multi-tenant SaaS environments preferred
• Building blocks of the web (HTTP, HTML, CSS, JS/TS, JSON, SSL) and strong first-principles systems engineering foundations
• Security and compliance implications (SOC 2, HIPAA, FedRAMP) for SaaS-style or licensed products and can design with them in mind

• Internet: Will prioritize and maintain access to strong, reliable internet for the remote nature of our work, except when on vacation or holiday.
• Security: Will keep the highest security practices to ensure privacy and security of Coforma and client information, given the nature of our work, even when on vacation.
• Travel Flexibility: On request and with advanced notice, will attend in-person events such as meetings, workshops, and trainings as assigned for projects that require it.
• Brand Representation: Will represent Coforma professionally and sincerely, modeling our Company Values in all interactions.

We participate in E-Verify. Upon hire, we will provide the federal government with your Form I-9 information to confirm that you are authorized to work in the United States.

Due to the nature of our work with the federal government, this role is required to work from the contiguous United States.

We're Coforma

We use creativity to get results for clients and the communities they serve.

We’ve honed a modern, agile, user-centered approach that elevates human needs through thoughtfully-designed systems and products.

From connecting families in crisis at the US border to improving the way governments consume COVID-19 mobility data through a more accessible and user-friendly tool, we’re dedicated to improving people’s lives through thoughtful technology products and services. Together. Our cross-functional team works closely with each other and with our government, nonprofit, and commercial partners to research, design, and build better products and services.

Coforma employs over 150 talented creators. Our leadership has decades of experience in improving government digital services from a civic service mindset, and a strong record of developing innovative technology solutions for government, enterprise, and nonprofits.

We thoughtfully integrate design into product development. We are experts in leading the design and development of products to meet business goals, build alignment, and deliver value through technically feasible and iterative design activities.

Business objectives and human beings are at the center of our work. We work very closely and collaboratively with our partners, from solicitation through to delivery, to ensure that the solution provides a high level of value to the business. Accessibility is never overlooked in our work, and our iterative approach validates the utility and delight of the final product.

Benefits

In addition to the many perks that come with our remote-first company and culture, we offer numerous benefits to eligible employees. Some of those include:

• Flexible PTO along with paid holidays

• Medical, dental, and vision coverage

• A 401(k) plan with an employer match

• Internet, phone, and home office stipends

• A professional development fund along with numerous growth opportunities

• 16-week parental leave policy available to birthing and non-birthing parents

• Remote work policy, which saves the average worker $5,000 a year in transportation costs

You can learn more on our website at https://coforma.io/careers.

Equal Opportunity & Inclusive Workplace

Coforma is an Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) employer. It's our policy to provide equal employment opportunities to all qualified applicants without regard to race, religion, sex, gender, age, disability, military or veteran status, or any other factors protected under federal, state, or local law.

We're committed to ensuring accessibility and equal opportunity and offering reasonable accommodations to those with disabilities. We adhere to the guidelines set forth by the Americans with Disabilities Act and all relevant federal, state, and local laws concerning disability discrimination and accommodation. To request a reasonable accommodation for the application or interview process, please email [email protected].

About Public Trust and Other Background Investigations

Due to the nature of our client and project work, most roles may require a National Agency Check and Inquiries (NACI), Moderate Background Investigation (MBI), Background Investigation (BI) or other relevant investigations as needed. Additional information regarding background evaluations or investigations can be found on the U.S. Office of Personnel Management website (opm.gov).