{"id":57507,"url":"https://alion.io/job/robots-and-pencils-staff-platform-engineer","title":"Staff Platform Engineer","company":{"id":7662,"name":"Robots & Pencils","domain":"robotsandpencils.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/robots-and-pencils","size_band":"201-500","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Greenhouse","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":83,"open_postings":9,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.667,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":34,"computed_at":"2026-10-28T05:59:10Z"}},"role":"DevOps","role_family":"DevOps","seniority":"staff","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"remote","remote_scope":"stated_countries","remote_scope_basis":"posting_text","remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"explicit","locations":["Calgary, Canada"],"countries":["CA"],"hiring_countries":["CA"],"hiring_countries_total":1,"salary":{"min":104000,"max":143000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":143000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":7,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"AWS","optional":false},{"name":"Azure DevOps","optional":false},{"name":"CI/CD","optional":false},{"name":"Claude","optional":false},{"name":"Cursor","optional":false},{"name":"FinOps","optional":false},{"name":"Go","optional":false},{"name":"IAM","optional":false},{"name":"Java","optional":false},{"name":"Kubernetes","optional":false},{"name":"LLM","optional":false},{"name":"Platform Engineering","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"Service Mesh","optional":false},{"name":"Zero Trust","optional":false},{"name":"Azure","optional":true},{"name":"CoreWeave","optional":true},{"name":"GCP","optional":true},{"name":"HPC","optional":true},{"name":"SLURM","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-08-13T23:29:36Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-21","last_verified_at":"2026-10-29T00:48:21Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":76,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":1,"flags":[],"days_open":75},"description":"Staff Platform Engineer \nLocation: This position can be located in the following area(s): remote in Canada\nCompany Overview \nRobots & Pencils is an applied AI engineering firm building the next frontier of business architecture. We design and ship AI co-workers that integrate into enterprise operations and deliver measurable results for our clients. We're all in on AWS, combining deep UX capability with senior engineering talent to get AI into production fast and keep it there. \nWe’ve earned the trust of leaders across Consumer Products and Retail, Education, Energy, Financial Services, Healthcare, and Manufacturing and more, and earned a reputation as the nimble alternative to traditional global systems integrators. Founded in 2009, with delivery centers in Canada, the United States, Eastern Europe, and Latin America, we are smaller, faster, and more senior by design. Our teams average 15+ years of experience. We move fast, sweat the details, and build things that actually ship. \nPosition Overview \nWe’re looking for a Staff Platform Engineer to define and lead platform engineering strategy across complex, multi-environment cloud systems. This role is ideal for an experienced engineer who can own infrastructure architecture end-to-end, drive DevSecOps and compliance practices, and serve as a technical leader on the engagements they support. \nIn this role, you will work as a key technical contributor on a cross-functional team, defining standards and owning platform reliability, performance, and security at scale. You’ll mentor engineers, partner with leadership on infrastructure direction, and lead complex migrations and modernization initiatives. \nWhy This Role Matters \nAt Robots & Pencils, we design AI systems for a human world. Our name says it all. Robots and pencils means engineering paired with creativity, because every agent we ship has to work for real people in real workflows. That balance is baked into how we operate. \nEvery role here contributes directly to that mission. Here, you shape how AI systems integrate into enterprise operations, how teams move at real velocity, and how products create measurable impact for clients and the people they serve. We ship production-ready AI in 30 to 45 days. That pace demands people who take ownership, lead with craft, and care deeply about what they put their name on. \nWhat You’ll Do \nCraft & Delivery \nDefine DevOps strategy and lead infrastructure architecture across multi-environment, multi-region cloud systems\nArchitect and own scalable Kubernetes platforms and containerized infrastructure at scale\nOwn infrastructure as code strategy and standards across environments\nLead DevSecOps implementation including secrets management, compliance, auditing, IAM, and zero-trust networking\nDrive platform reliability, performance SLAs, and cost optimization across production systems\nLead complex cloud migrations and platform modernization initiatives\nOwn observability strategy and production reliability practices\nLead the design and operation of AI/ML platform infrastructure, including model serving and deployment, GPU workload orchestration, LLM gateway and observability, vector store infrastructure, and CI/CD for AI/ML systems\nBring an AI-forward mindset to your daily work, using tools like Claude, Cursor, and other modern AI assistants to ship higher-quality work at pace\nCollaboration & Communication \nPartner with engineering, product, and leadership to align platform strategy with business and delivery goals\nCommunicate complex infrastructure decisions and tradeoffs clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders\nLead design reviews, architecture discussions, and release readiness assessments\nLeadership & Influence \nEstablish platform engineering standards and best practices on the engagements you support\nMentor junior and mid-level engineers, helping them grow their craft, confidence, and impact\nAct as a technical escalation point on complex infrastructure and platform challenges\nEvaluate emerging tools and technologies, recommending patterns that improve platform reliability and developer experience\nWhat You’ll Bring \n7+ years of professional DevOps or platform engineering experience, with experience leading complex platform initiatives\nExpert scripting and programming skills (e.g., Python, Go, Java, Bash)\nDeep cloud expertise across at least one major platform\nExpert Kubernetes and container orchestration skills\nExpert IaC skills across multiple tools\nStrong CI/CD architecture experience at scale\nStrong DevSecOps experience including secrets management, compliance, and auditing\nExperience with networking, IAM, security architecture, and zero-trust principles in cloud environments\nExperience with service mesh, distributed systems, and microservices architecture\nStrong experience with AI/ML platform infrastructure, including model serving and deployment, GPU workload orchestration, LLM gateway and observability, vector store infrastructure, and CI/CD for AI/ML systems\nDemonstrated leadership and technical mentoring experience across a team or organization\nStrong stakeholder communication skills, with the ability to translate technical depth across audiences\nDemonstrable, day-to-day usage and expert knowledge of AI-forward tools such as Claude and Cursor\nExcellent problem-solving skills and the ability to navigate highly ambiguous technical and business challenges with sound judgment\nCloud certifications (e.g., AWS DevOps Engineer Professional, CKA, Azure DevOps Engineer) or FinOps experience is a plus\nHelpful Extras and Unique Skills\nDesigning and provision HPC cluster infrastructure using CI/CD pipeline across AWS, CoreWeave, GCP, and OCI\nExperience with HPC job schedulers and workload managers such as Slurm or equivalent for job submission and queue management\nYou’ll Do Well Here if You Are \nA doer. You see something broken and fix it. You'd rather move on clarity than wait for certainty.\nA fast learner who knows you don't know everything. The AI landscape changes weekly. You're senior enough to know better and curious enough to keep learning anyway.\nDirect in a way that makes the work better. You give honest feedback. You'd rather have the hard conversation than blow smoke.\nObsessed with craft. You know genius is in the details. You ship exceptional, not perfect, and you don't put your name on work you wouldn't stand behind.\nBuilt for ownership. You honor commitments, admit mistakes fast, and back your teammates when a decision costs something. No handoffs, no finger-pointing.\nAll in. You treat clients' businesses like your own. You take the work seriously without taking yourself seriously.\nResourceful when the budget, timeline, or team is tight. Constraints don't slow you down. They sharpen you.\n Glad to be in the room with people who care as much as you do. Our teams average fifteen-plus years of experience. We hire people who push each other to do better work.\nThe below range reflects the range of possible compensation for this role at the time of this posting. We may ultimately pay more or less than the posted range. This range may be modified in the future. An employee's position within the salary range will be based on several factors including, but not limited to, relevant education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, seniority, geographic location, performance, shift, travel requirements, sales or revenue-based metrics, any collective bargaining agreements, and business or organizational needs. The salary range for this role is $104,000. - $143,000. USD We offer a comprehensive package of benefits including paid time off, medical/dental/vision insurance and RRSP Plan to eligible employees. \nAn offer of employment may be conditional upon successful completion of a background check in accordance with local legislation and our candidate privacy notice. Your current employer will not be contacted without your permission. We are committed to ensuring equal employment opportunities for all job applicants and employees. Employment decisions are based upon job-related reasons regardless of an applicant's race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, national origin, disability, marital status, genetic information, protected veteran status, or any other status protected by law.","description_format":"text","description_chars":8326,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":7,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Vision insurance"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"Canada","iso":"CA","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["UI/UX Design","Custom Software Development","AI Consulting & Integration"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-08-13T23:29:36Z"},{"event":"close","at":"2026-08-24T14:50:51Z"},{"event":"reopen","at":"2026-10-21T17:55:14Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":25,"band":"fade","label":"Fading","p_open":1,"p_active":0.903,"p_room":0.28,"age_days":75,"expected_fill_days":34,"reasons":["conf:4","velocity","win:tail","crowd:"],"computed_at":"2026-10-28T05:59:10Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":143000,"is_top_pay":false},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/robots-and-pencils-staff-platform-engineer","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/robots-and-pencils-staff-platform-engineer.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-29T03:11:40Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":4807,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-30T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":7662},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=7662"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Frobots-and-pencils-staff-platform-engineer"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Frobots-and-pencils-staff-platform-engineer"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Frobots-and-pencils-staff-platform-engineer"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/robots-and-pencils-staff-platform-engineer\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Frobots-and-pencils-staff-platform-engineer"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":57507}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"robotsandpencils.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":57507},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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