OS Lifecycle & AI Enablement: Support hardware OS image builds (Yocto, Manifold) and productionize internal AI gateways, RAG tooling, and developer AI workflows (Cursor).
Technical & Team Leadership: Author RFCs/design docs, run architecture reviews, plan roadmaps, and mentor mid/staff-level engineers. Provide direct management (1:1s, hiring, performance reviews) during transitions or scale.
Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner with security, embedded, and field teams to ensure seamless delivery across airgapped and edge environments.
What Success Looks Like
Predictable Delivery: Release engineering is seamless, observable, and fully trusted across teams.
Automated Security: Compliance evidence and SBOMs are generated natively in CI/CD without manual overhead.
Governed AI: AI tooling is securely integrated, well-documented, and actively adopted by developers.
Team Growth & Resilience: Engineering standards elevate across the org, priorities remain clear, and team leadership operates without single points of failure.
What We’re Looking For
Required
10+ years in software/platform engineering, with 5+ years managing production infrastructure at scale.
Technical & People Leadership: Proven track record leading projects, designing architecture, mentoring engineers, and readiness (or prior experience) for direct people management.
Cloud & Modern Delivery: Hands-on mastery of Kubernetes, ArgoCD, GitHub Actions/Earthly, and Infrastructure as Code (Terraform/OpenTofu, AWS/GovCloud).
Supply Chain Security: Strong background in artifact registries, container signing (Cosign/Sigstore), Vault, and SBOM generation.
Clearance: Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. Security Clearance (U.S. Citizenship required).
Preferred
Background in defense, aerospace, or regulated environments (NIST 800-53, IL4/IL5, CMMC).
Embedded Linux/OS experience (Yocto, SLE Micro) and airgapped/edge deployment models.
Experience deploying internal AI/LLM infrastructure (RAG, model gateways, governance).
Scripting proficiency in Go, Python, and Bash.
Compensation & Benefits
Base Salary: $255,000 - $280,000
Bonus program and equity in a fast-growing startup
Competitive medical, dental, and vision coverage for employees and their families
Health Savings Account with annual employer contributions
Employer-paid Life and Disability Insurance
Uncapped paid time off policy
Flexible work & remote work policy
Tax-deferred public transit benefits with Metro SmartBenefits (DC/MD/VA)
We are committed to building an inclusive culture of belonging that embraces the diversity of our people and represents the communities in which we work and the customers we serve. We know the happiest and highest performing teams include people with diverse perspectives and ways of solving problems. We strive to attract and retain talent from all backgrounds and create workplaces where everyone feels empowered to bring their full, authentic selves to work.
Shift5 is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sexual orientation, gender identify, national origin, disability, age, marital status, ancestry, projected veteran status, or any other protected group or class.
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