Principal Developer – Platform Engineering Self Employed position- 1 year initial contract plus extensions
We are seeking a Principal Developer to lead the design, development, and operation of a mission-critical enterprise platform.
This platform integrates OpenShift, Azure IaaS, HashiCorp Vault, Jenkins, Keycloak, Okta, ELK, MongoDB, PostgreSQL, Elasticsearch, MinIO, Solace, Confluent Kafka, custom Kubernetes operators, NGINX reverse proxies, and an API Gateway, providing secure and resilient digital services for air navigation, network management, and operational data exchange.
The role demands a hands-on technical leader capable of bridging software engineering, infrastructure automation, and enterprise-grade reliability and security in alignment with aviation safety and data protection standards.
Platform Design & Engineering
Lead the development of CI/CD automation pipelines with Jenkins, ensuring consistent, traceable, and auditable software delivery.
Collaborate with product teams to integrate data services (PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Elasticsearch, MinIO) into the platform ecosystem.
Manage event-driven integration patterns using Solace PubSub+ and Confluent Kafka, supporting real-time aviation data exchange.
Collaborate with cybersecurity and compliance teams to implement zero-trust networking and policy-as-code controls.
Act as technical authority and mentor for platform engineers and developers, guiding architecture, design, and operational excellence.
Spend 15-20% of time to provide support to the product developers who are the customers of the platform.
10+ years of professional experience in software/platform engineering, including 3+ in a principal or lead developer capacity.
~ Proven experience with OpenShift/Kubernetes (operator SDKs, Helm, ArgoCD, cluster management, GO programming language).
~ Deep understanding of Azure IaaS, virtual networking, and hybrid cloud architectures.
~ Solid background in Terraform, Ansible, and containerized application delivery.
~ Understanding of observability stacks (ELK, Prometheus, Grafana) and log/metric correlation techniques.
Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional teams and set architectural direction.
Deep understanding of cybersecurity, compliance, and operational resilience in regulated domains.
Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) or Application Developer (CKAD).
Azure Solutions Architect Expert or Azure DevOps Engineer certification.