Senior Platform Engineer

Senior Platform Engineer

Playa Vista, California, United States

Turning Space into a Transportation Layer for Earth

Who We Are:

Inversion builds advanced reentry systems to deliver next-generation capabilities from space. Our mission is to make Earth radically more accessible by turning Low-Earth Orbit into an on-demand logistics domain. We see space not as a destination, but as a platform — one that unlocks unprecedented speed and global reach. Our spacecraft are designed to deliver payloads anywhere on Earth in under an hour, operating through extreme reentry conditions and landing with high precision. These systems open the door to new ways of testing, delivering, and operating at hypersonic speeds. Inherently dual-use, our technology is built to meet urgent national security needs while laying the groundwork for future commercial applications. Backed by leading investors including Y Combinator, Spark Capital, and Lockheed Martin Ventures, and working with partners such as the U.S. Space Force and NASA, Inversion is pushing the boundaries of what's possible in space-based defense and logistics.

About the Role

As a Senior Platform Engineer at Inversion, you will work as part of the simulation team to develop and manage the infrastructure that supports the simulation and test environments for our flight systems. The simulation team is responsible for ensuring that flight software and flight hardware can be continuously integrated and tested under realistic flight conditions. You will play a key role in the design and implementation of infrastructure-agnostic platforms and self-service tools that will enable fast, repeatable development and deployment workflows across the engineering stack. Your work will empower Inversion's engineering teams to iterate rapidly throughout the development life cycle and will strengthen Inversion's ability to put our products into the hands of our customers with unprecedented speed and agility.

What You'll Do

• Provision, deploy, and maintain infrastructure to support simulation workflows, including high-performance computing (HPC), software-in-the-loop (SIL) testing, and hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing
• Leverage infrastructure as a service (IaaS) to enable scalability and resource optimization
• Leverage automation and infrastructure as code (IaC) to manage infrastructure efficiently
• Leverage containerization and orchestration to enable modern, scalable, and resilient application deployments
• Work closely with developers/engineers to design, implement, and manage continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines to improve iteration speed and flight system reliability
• Configure network hardware, manage cloud resources, and ensure network security and performance
• Contribute to the design and development of a simulation system capable of automatically provisioning and deploying resources to support simulation workflows

Required Qualifications

Candidates must meet all of the following qualifications to be considered for this role:

• 5+ years of professional experience in platform, DevOps, infrastructure, or software engineering
• Expertise in DevOps best practices
• Proficiency in one or more scripting languages (Python, Lua, Bash, PowerShell, etc.)
• Experience with Linux-based systems
• Experience with one or more CI/CD platforms (GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, Jenkins, etc.)
• Experience with containerization (Docker/Podman) and orchestration (Kubernetes)
• Must have the ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. government Secret/Top Secret security clearance.

The ideal candidate will also meet one or more of the following qualifications:

• Expertise in IaaS (AWS and GCP)
• Expertise in IaC (Terraform)
• Expertise in database administration and network administration
• Familiarity with system observability tools (Prometheus, Grafana, etc.)

Desired Qualifications

• Experience with embedded systems
• Experience with SIL, HIL, or robotics testbeds
• Familiarity with Linux-based real-time systems
• Familiarity with cloud-based/distributed HPC

Our office headquarters is located in Playa Vista, CA. This position requires in office presence.

The California annual base salary for this role is currently $139,000 - $201,000. Pay Grades are determined by role, level, location, and alignment with market data. Individual pay will be determined on a case-by-case basis and may vary based on the following considerations: interviews and an assessment of several factors that are unique to each candidate, job-related skills, relevant education and experience, certifications, abilities of the candidate and internal equity.

ITAR Compliance: To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) you must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. Learn more about the ITAR here. Equal Employment Opportunity: Inversion provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, veteran status, or disability. Inversion collects and processes personal data in accordance with applicable data protection laws. If you are a US Job Applicant see the CCPA Privacy Policy Notice for further details.