Senior Mission Data Platform Engineer

ABOUT THE TEAM

We build robots that find other robots and knock them out of the sky. At a time when air superiority can no longer be taken for granted, the Air Defense (AD) Team provides mission critical capabilities to warfighters. From detection to tracking, identification, deterrence, and defeat, our family of networked sensors and effectors enables our customers to rapidly close the kill chain against a broad range of Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) threats. Working across product, engineering, sales, logistics, operations, and mission success, the Air Defense team develops, tests, deploys, and sustains the Anduril Air Defense Family of Systems (FoS) in challenging operational environments worldwide.

ABOUT THE JOB

We are seeking a Senior Mission Data Platform Engineer to design, build, and operate the foundational data infrastructure that empowers our analytics and engineering teams. In this role, you will be the architect of a scalable, reliable, and easy-to-use platform that enables analytics engineers, data scientists, and software engineers to build high-impact analyses and data-driven applications.

You will combine deep expertise in cloud infrastructure, DevOps, and modern data systems to create a cohesive ecosystem. Applying Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) principles will be key to ensuring the performance and availability of these critical systems, which operate in both commercial cloud and classified environments. You will collaborate closely with platform users to understand their needs and remove friction, ensuring our data capabilities are a force multiplier for the entire organization. Your ability to deploy and maintain these mission-critical solutions will be essential, with occasional travel required for real-world implementation and support.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead the design, development, and maintenance of a scalable, self-service data platform that serves as the foundation for analytics and data applications across the organization.
• Architect and manage the underlying cloud infrastructure using Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform), containerization (Docker, Kubernetes), and CI/CD best practices to support the data platform.
• Partner with and empower platform users—including analytics engineers, data scientists, and software engineers—by providing robust tooling, clear documentation, and a seamless developer experience.
• Implement SRE principles to ensure the data platform is highly available, performant, and observable, establishing SLOs, automating operational tasks, and leading incident response for the platform.
• Evolve the platform's architecture by evaluating and integrating new technologies from the modern data stack to meet the ever-changing needs of the business.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• 6+ years of experience in a combination of data platform engineering, cloud infrastructure, DevOps, or SRE roles.
• Active U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) Secret Clearance or higher and experience operating in air-gapped, classified, and/or other highly constrained network environments.
• Hands-on experience building and maintaining platforms with key components of the modern data stack, such as data lakehouse technologies (e.g., Apache Iceberg), query engines (e.g., Trino/Presto, AWS Athena), transformation tools (e.g., dbt), and real-time stream & batch processing platforms (e.g., Apache Kafka, Apache Spark).
• Extensive experience with Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC), particularly Terraform, for managing complex cloud environments (e.g., AWS, Azure, GCP).
• Strong proficiency in DevOps and software deployment practices, including containerization and orchestration (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes, Helm), GitOps & CI/CD tooling (e.g., ArgoCD, CircleCI), and observability/monitoring/APM platforms (e.g., Datadog, Grafana).
• Exceptional problem-solving and critical-thinking skills, with the ability to architect robust technical solutions for ambiguous and dynamic platform requirements.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, especially when communicating with a technical audience; an affection for documentation and a user-centric mindset.
• Procedural fluency in writing, debugging, profiling, testing, and maintaining performant Python and SQL code.
• Experience with data pipeline orchestration tooling (e.g., Flyte, Airflow, Dagster).
• Experience writing code in another language (e.g., Go, Java, Scala, JavaScript/TypeScript).

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Ability to comprehend and appropriately modify software written in a systems or lower-level language such as C/C++, Rust, Zig, etc.
• Experience with setting up and managing infrastructure to support analytical workloads on-premises or in resource-constrained environments.
• Experience working with specialized data formats (e.g., MCAP, HDF5) common in domains like robotics.
• Experience with the Nix (dependency management & system configuration) ecosystem.
• Strong Linux fundamentals and troubleshooting skills.
• Prior defense, aerospace, or intelligence domain experience.
• Deep intellectual interest in the intersection of infrastructure, analytics, and the physical hardware world, motivated by our mission.
• Exposure to the technical, programmatic, and operational challenges of developing and deploying advanced systems across various command echelons.