Lead Platform Engineer – GitLab CI/CD | IDP| Terraform | AWS

Role Description Job Summary

We are seeking an experienced Senior Platform Engineer / Developer Experience Engineer with 8+ years of hands-on experience in Platform Engineering, DevOps, Software Engineering, or related areas.

The ideal candidate will have strong expertise in GitLab CI/CD, Internal Developer Portals such as Backstage, AWS, Terraform, scripting, and observability tools . This role will focus on building scalable developer platforms, improving engineering workflows, automating infrastructure and deployments, and reducing developer friction across the organization.

The candidate should have a strong engineering and problem-solving mindset , with the ability to understand developer challenges and translate them into effective technical solutions.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, develop, optimize, and maintain CI/CD pipelines using GitLab.
• Create and manage reusable GitLab pipeline templates, components, and automation frameworks.
• Develop and enhance Internal Developer Portals (IDPs) using Backstage.
• Build developer self-service capabilities and automation to improve engineering productivity.
• Develop and maintain platform automation using Python and Bash scripting.
• Work closely with engineering teams to identify and resolve developer friction and productivity challenges.
• Translate developer requirements and pain points into scalable technical solutions.
• Automate cloud infrastructure provisioning and management using Terraform.
• Implement and maintain cloud-native solutions on AWS.
• Monitor platform and application health using observability tools, particularly Datadog.
• Troubleshoot and resolve complex CI/CD, infrastructure, deployment, and platform-related issues.
• Establish and promote engineering best practices, standards, automation, and governance.
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives to reduce operational overhead and improve developer experience.
• Collaborate with cross-functional engineering teams to continuously improve the developer platform.

Mandatory Skills

• 8+ years of experience in Software Engineering, Platform Engineering, DevOps, SRE, or related areas.

• Strong hands-on experience with GitLab CI/CD, including:

• CI/CD pipeline creation and optimization

• Pipeline templates and component development

• Repository and workflow management

• Strong programming/scripting skills in Python and Bash.

• Hands-on experience with Backstage or similar Internal Developer Portals.

• Strong development experience with TypeScript/JavaScript.

• Experience building developer workflow automation and self-service solutions.

• Strong debugging and troubleshooting skills.

• Ability to understand and translate developer friction into technical solutions.

Preferred Skills

• Hands-on experience with AWS Cloud Services.
• Strong experience with Terraform / Infrastructure as Code (IaC).
• Experience with Datadog or similar observability and monitoring platforms.
• Experience monitoring platform and application health.
• Knowledge of cloud security, governance, and best practices.
• Hands-on experience with Kubernetes and cloud-native technologies.
• Experience with containerization technologies such as Docker.

Ideal Candidate Profile

The ideal candidate is a strong hands-on Platform Engineer who can combine software engineering, DevOps, cloud infrastructure, and developer experience capabilities.

They Should Be Comfortable Working Across GitLab CI/CD → Backstage / Developer Portal → Python/Bash → Terraform → AWS → Datadog → Kubernetes A strong automation mindset, debugging capability, ownership, and "can-do" attitude are essential for this role.

Skills GitLab, CI/CD, JavaScript, TypeScript, AWS, Datadog, Terraform