Senior Platform Engineer

Important Notice for Applicants: At Bixal, we want to ensure a transparent and secure application process for all candidates. Official communication will come from an email address ending in @bixal.com or from @bixal.na.teamtailor-mail.com. Messages from other sources may be fraudulent, and you should exercise care to avoid any links or attachments included. Bixal will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Need Assistance or a Reasonable Accommodation? If you need assistance or a reasonable accommodation to complete your application, we're here to help. Please reach out to us at View email address on click.appcast.io and let us know how we can support you. You do not need to share personal details or disclose the nature of your request. You can expect a response from a team member within 24 hours during the regular work week and on the next operating day during the weekend or holidays. Why Bixal? Bixal is a consulting company headquartered in Fairfax, VA, working alongside governments and organizations to help them deliver better services and experiences to the communities they serve. Using evidence-based knowledge and technology, Bixal empowers clients to deliver on their missions more effectively by fostering a culture of learning and continuous improvement. Our values: People-First: Emphasizing the importance of people in all aspects of work. Collaboration and Transparency: Valuing teamwork and open communication. Growth Mindset: Encouraging innovation and continuous improvement. Creating Lasting Impact: Focusing on meaningful outcomes and positive change. About the role: We're looking for a Senior Platform Engineer to build and operate the CI/CD pipelines, Infrastructure as Code, and observability foundation that engineering teams rely on daily. You'll work hands-on with Terraform, GitLab, and Datadog to deliver golden-path templates and environment automation, supporting on-call rotations and continuous improvement of our client’s developer platform. This role offers you a unique opportunity to make a meaningful impact on a mission-critical federal platform that aligns with Bixal's mission of delivering innovative, human-centered solutions. At Bixal, we support your professional journey, ensuring your experience reflects our purpose-driven culture and prepares you for future success. Compensation: The salary range for this role is $135,000 – $145,000. In the spirit of transparency, most offers tend to land near the midpoint of the range. We make compensation decisions thoughtfully, considering your experience, the skills you bring, and our commitment to internal equity. Fairness and transparency are core to how we operate. Responsibilities: Build and operate CI/CD pipelines, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), and Terraform templates supporting the engineering platform. Implement and maintain observability on Datadog, including instrumentation, alerting, and service-level objectives. Support environment automation, on-call rotations, and golden-path delivery. Improve environment stability, deployment safety, and configuration consistency across agency services. Implement monitoring and alerting that support effective incident response and production operations. Eliminate recurring operational work through automation, improving team velocity. Deliver platform improvements with measurable impact on reliability and developer productivity. Participate in two-week sprints, backlog refinement, and architecture reviews with the Platform Enablement team. Other relevant duties as qualified and trained to perform. Qualifications: Bachelor's degree and at least eight (8) years of related experience, or an equivalent combination of education and experience. Hands-on experience building and maintaining delivery pipelines, infrastructure automation, and shared platform services for high-availability systems. Demonstrated ability to improve environment stability, deployment safety, and configuration consistency. Experience implementing monitoring and alerting that supports effective incident response and production operations. Strong automation skills to eliminate recurring operational work and improve team velocity. Able to independently deliver platform improvements with measurable impact on reliability and developer productivity. Solid understanding of Datadog, GitLab CI/CD, and FedRAMP-authorized toolchains. Must be able to obtain and maintain a Tier 4 High Risk Public Trust clearance. Nice to Have Skills and Experience: Experience with Terraform-based golden-path/IaC module design in a federal or regulated environment. Exposure to AI-assisted coding tools for boilerplate or IaC generation. Prior federal or large-scale enterprise platform engineering experience. How We Support Our Team: Flex hours 401K with matching incentive Parental Leave Medical/dental/vision benefits Flex Spending Account Company provided short-term disability and life insurance Commuter benefits Paid Time Off (PTO) 11 Paid holidays Our company is committed to providing equal employment opportunities for all individuals and complies with all applicable federal, state, and local anti-discrimination laws. Employment decisions are based on merit, qualifications, and business needs.