Staff Platform Engineer

At 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. Every 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.

Lead design and implementation of CI/CD pipelines end-to-end, driving quality and reliability across delivery workflows

Architect and implement cloud-native infrastructure solutions for scalability, resilience, and cost efficiency

Design and manage Kubernetes clusters and containerized workloads at scale

Implement and own infrastructure as code across environments

Drive observability, performance optimization, and alerting across production systems

Implement DevSecOps practices including security scanning, secrets management, and access control

Lead production incident response, root cause analysis, and post-mortems

Design and operate 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

Bring 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

Collaborate with engineering, QA, and product teams across the full SDLC to align infrastructure with delivery goals

Communicate technical tradeoffs and infrastructure decisions clearly across functions

Participate actively in design reviews, sprint ceremonies, and release planning

Lead platform work end-to-end with growing ownership of infrastructure strategy

Contribute to platform standards and best practices that lift reliability and consistency across the team

Begin mentoring junior engineers, sharing knowledge and supporting their growth

5–7 years of professional DevOps or platform engineering experience with growing ownership of infrastructure

Strong scripting and programming skills (e.g., Python, Go, Bash)

Hands-on cloud expertise across at least one major platform with multi-service understanding

Strong Kubernetes and container orchestration experience

Strong IaC expertise

Strong CI/CD pipeline design and ownership experience

Experience with observability stacks

Experience with networking, security, and IAM in cloud environments

Familiarity with microservices and distributed systems architecture

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

Demonstrable, day-to-day usage of AI-forward tools such as Claude and Cursor

Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to navigate ambiguous technical challenges with sound judgment

Experience with service mesh, multi-cloud or hybrid environments, or a cloud certification is a plus

A doer. You see something broken and fix it. You'd rather move on clarity than wait for certainty.

A 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.

Direct in a way that makes the work better. You give honest feedback. You'd rather have the hard conversation than blow smoke.

Obsessed 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.

Built for ownership. You honor commitments, admit mistakes fast, and back your teammates when a decision costs something. No handoffs, no finger-pointing.

All in. You treat clients' businesses like your own. You take the work seriously without taking yourself seriously.

Resourceful when the budget, timeline, or team is tight. Constraints don't slow you down. They sharpen you.

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.

The 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 $109,000.- $150,000.USD. We offer a comprehensive package of benefits including paid time off, medical/dental/vision insurance and 401(k) to eligible employees. An 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.