Platform Engineer Job Description Template - 2025 Guide

A Platform Engineer builds and maintains the foundational infrastructure that enables development teams to deploy, scale, and manage applications efficiently. This role combines software engineering skills with infrastructure expertise to create developer-friendly platforms that accelerate product delivery while ensuring reliability, security, and operational excellence.

Key Highlights

• Strategic Role: Drive developer productivity and platform standardization across engineering organizations
• Competitive Compensation: Average salary ranges from $110,000 to $170,000 annually depending on experience and location
• Full-Stack Infrastructure: Work across cloud platforms, containerization, CI/CD, and developer tooling
• High Impact: Directly enable faster software delivery and improved developer experience
• Growing Field: Platform engineering is emerging as a distinct discipline with increasing demand
• Remote-Friendly: Most positions offer flexible work arrangements and distributed team collaboration

Why This Role Matters

Platform Engineers serve as force multipliers for engineering organizations, creating self-service infrastructure that reduces cognitive load on development teams. By abstracting complex infrastructure concerns into developer-friendly interfaces, they enable faster feature delivery while maintaining operational standards and security compliance.

The role has emerged from the convergence of DevOps, Site Reliability Engineering, and cloud-native technologies. Platform Engineers focus on building internal developer platforms (IDPs) that provide standardized deployment pipelines, monitoring, security scanning, and infrastructure provisioning through intuitive interfaces and APIs.

Primary Job Description Template

About the Role

We are seeking a skilled Platform Engineer to join our infrastructure team and build the next generation of our internal developer platform. You will be responsible for designing, implementing, and maintaining developer-focused infrastructure solutions that streamline application deployment, improve developer experience, and ensure operational excellence across our engineering organization.

As a Platform Engineer, you will create self-service tools, automate infrastructure provisioning, and establish platform standards that enable product teams to focus on feature development rather than infrastructure concerns. You will work at the intersection of software engineering and infrastructure, building platforms that are both powerful and intuitive to use.

You will report to the Platform Engineering Manager and collaborate closely with Site Reliability Engineers, DevOps teams, and product engineering teams to deliver platform capabilities that accelerate software delivery while maintaining security and reliability standards.

Key Responsibilities

• Platform Development: Design and build internal developer platforms that provide self-service infrastructure provisioning, deployment pipelines, and operational tooling through intuitive interfaces and APIs

• Developer Experience: Create developer-friendly abstractions for complex infrastructure concepts, including deployment workflows, environment management, and service discovery mechanisms

• Infrastructure Automation: Implement infrastructure-as-code solutions, automated provisioning workflows, and configuration management systems that reduce manual operations and improve consistency

• CI/CD Pipeline Engineering: Build and maintain sophisticated continuous integration and deployment pipelines that include automated testing, security scanning, and progressive deployment strategies

• Service Mesh and Networking: Implement and manage service mesh technologies, API gateways, and networking solutions that enable secure, scalable service-to-service communication

• Observability Implementation: Design and implement comprehensive monitoring, logging, and alerting systems that provide visibility into platform health and application performance

• Security Integration: Embed security practices into platform workflows including vulnerability scanning, secrets management, policy enforcement, and compliance automation

• Documentation and Training: Create comprehensive platform documentation, runbooks, and training materials to enable effective self-service adoption by development teams

• Performance Optimization: Monitor platform performance, identify bottlenecks, and optimize resource utilization to ensure efficient operation and cost management

• Collaboration and Support: Work closely with product teams to understand their infrastructure needs and provide technical guidance on platform capabilities and best practices

Requirements

Must-Have Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related field, or equivalent practical experience
• 4+ years of experience in software engineering, DevOps, or infrastructure automation roles
• Strong programming skills in languages such as Python, Go, or Java for building platform tools and automation
• Experience with containerization technologies including Docker and Kubernetes in production environments
• Proficiency with infrastructure-as-code tools such as Terraform, Pulumi, or AWS CDK
• Hands-on experience with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP) including compute, storage, and networking services
• Knowledge of CI/CD tools and practices including Jenkins, GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, or similar platforms
• Understanding of software engineering best practices including version control, testing, and code review processes

Nice-to-Have Qualifications:

• Experience building internal developer platforms or platform-as-a-service solutions
• Knowledge of service mesh technologies such as Istio, Linkerd, or Consul Connect
• Experience with GitOps workflows and tools like ArgoCD, Flux, or Rancher Fleet
• Understanding of observability tools including Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog, or New Relic
• Experience with API design and development for platform services
• Knowledge of security tools and practices including vulnerability scanning and secrets management

What We Offer

• Competitive Salary: $120,000 - $150,000 annually based on experience and qualifications
• Comprehensive Benefits: Health, dental, and vision insurance with company-paid premiums
• Professional Development: $4,000 annual learning budget for training, conferences, and certifications
• Flexible Work Environment: Fully remote with optional co-working space access and quarterly team gatherings
• Equity Participation: Stock option program with competitive vesting schedule
• Generous Time Off: 25 days PTO plus holidays and unlimited sick leave
• Technology Budget: $2,000 annual allowance for home office setup and equipment upgrades
• Platform Innovation Time: 20% time allocation for platform experimentation and improvement projects

Context Variations

Corporate Environment: Large enterprises require extensive compliance integration, multi-tenant platform architecture, and enterprise-grade security controls. Focus on governance frameworks, audit trails, and integration with existing enterprise tools. Experience with regulatory requirements and enterprise procurement processes becomes valuable.

Startup Environment: Fast-paced environment emphasizing rapid platform iteration, cost optimization, and developer velocity. Greater autonomy in technology selection and platform architecture decisions. Focus on building MVP platforms that can evolve with business growth and scaling challenges.

Remote/Hybrid Environment: Strong emphasis on asynchronous collaboration, comprehensive documentation, and remote-friendly tooling. Platform interfaces must be self-explanatory with minimal human intervention. Communication skills and distributed team coordination become critical for platform adoption success.

Industry Considerations

Industry	Unique Requirements	Key Considerations
Financial Services	PCI DSS, SOX compliance, high availability requirements	Strong focus on security automation, audit trails, and disaster recovery capabilities
Healthcare	HIPAA compliance, data encryption, privacy controls	Emphasis on data governance, access controls, and regulatory compliance automation
E-commerce	High-traffic handling, global deployment, payment processing	Focus on scalability, performance optimization, and cost-effective resource management
SaaS Technology	Multi-tenancy, API-first architecture, rapid deployment	Platform must support frequent deployments, feature flagging, and customer isolation
Gaming	Real-time performance, global distribution, seasonal scaling	Specialized focus on low-latency infrastructure and dynamic scaling capabilities
Media/Entertainment	Content delivery, video processing, bandwidth management	Platform optimization for media workflows, CDN integration, and storage management

Compensation Guide

Salary Information Based on 2025 market data, Platform Engineer salaries typically range from $110,000 to $170,000 annually, with significant variations based on experience level, location, and company size. The role commands premium compensation due to its strategic impact and specialized skill requirements.

Location	Entry Level	Mid-Level	Senior Level
San Francisco, CA	$130,000 - $160,000	$160,000 - $200,000	$200,000 - $250,000
New York, NY	$120,000 - $150,000	$150,000 - $190,000	$190,000 - $230,000
Seattle, WA	$115,000 - $145,000	$145,000 - $180,000	$180,000 - $220,000
Austin, TX	$105,000 - $135,000	$135,000 - $170,000	$170,000 - $210,000
Chicago, IL	$100,000 - $130,000	$130,000 - $165,000	$165,000 - $200,000
Denver, CO	$105,000 - $135,000	$135,000 - $170,000	$170,000 - $205,000
Atlanta, GA	$95,000 - $125,000	$125,000 - $160,000	$160,000 - $195,000
Remote (US)	$110,000 - $140,000	$140,000 - $175,000	$175,000 - $215,000

Factors Affecting Compensation:

• Platform engineering specialization can command 15-25% premium over general DevOps roles
• Experience with modern platform technologies (Kubernetes, service mesh) increases earning potential
• Leadership experience in platform strategy and architecture significantly impacts compensation

Salary data sourced from Glassdoor, levels.fyi, and Robert Half Technology Salary Guide 2025

Interview Questions

Technical/Functional Questions

1. Describe how you would design an internal developer platform for a company with 50+ engineering teams. Evaluate: Platform architecture thinking, scalability considerations, and multi-tenancy design

2. Walk me through your approach to implementing a golden path for application deployment. Assess: Understanding of developer experience, pipeline design, and standardization strategies

3. How would you ensure platform reliability while allowing teams to move quickly? Look for: Balance between stability and agility, progressive deployment strategies, and risk management

4. Explain your strategy for migrating teams from manual deployment processes to a self-service platform. Evaluate: Change management skills, adoption strategies, and stakeholder communication

5. Describe how you would implement secrets management across a multi-service platform. Assess: Security knowledge, secrets lifecycle management, and integration patterns

6. How would you design platform APIs that are both powerful and easy to use? Look for: API design principles, developer experience focus, and abstraction strategies

7. What's your approach to platform observability and how would you implement it? Evaluate: Monitoring strategy, logging architecture, and operational visibility

8. How would you handle platform versioning and backwards compatibility? Assess: Platform evolution strategy, migration planning, and user communication

Behavioral Questions

9. Tell me about a time when you had to convince development teams to adopt a new platform or tool. Look for: Influencing skills, stakeholder management, and adoption strategy execution

10. Describe a situation where you had to balance platform standardization with team-specific requirements. Assess: Flexibility in platform design, compromise skills, and customer focus

11. Give me an example of how you've improved developer productivity through platform engineering. Evaluate: Impact measurement, developer empathy, and results-oriented thinking

12. Tell me about a time when a platform you built experienced significant issues. How did you handle it? Look for: Incident response skills, communication under pressure, and learning from failures

13. Describe how you've collaborated with security teams to embed security into platform workflows. Assess: Security integration skills, collaborative approach, and compliance understanding

Culture Fit Questions

14. How do you balance building platform capabilities with supporting immediate developer needs? Look for: Priority management, customer focus, and strategic thinking

15. What's your approach to gathering feedback and requirements from platform users? Evaluate: User research skills, feedback integration, and continuous improvement mindset

16. How do you stay current with rapidly evolving platform technologies and practices? Assess: Continuous learning, technology evaluation, and knowledge sharing

17. Describe your ideal relationship with the development teams using your platform. Look for: Service-oriented mindset, partnership approach, and user empathy

Hiring Tips

Quick Sourcing Guide

Top Platforms for Platform Engineers:

• LinkedIn: Most effective for finding experienced professionals with platform engineering experience
• GitHub: Review contributions to platform tools, Kubernetes operators, and infrastructure projects
• Stack Overflow: Target software engineers interested in infrastructure and platform challenges
• Platform Engineering Community: Engage with PlatformCon attendees and community members

Professional Communities:

• Platform Engineering Community (platformengineering.org) events and slack channels
• Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) meetups and KubeCon conferences
• DevOps and Site Reliability Engineering communities focused on platform topics
• Internal Developer Platform vendor user groups and conferences

Posting Optimization Tips:

• Emphasize impact on developer experience and engineering productivity
• Highlight modern technologies like Kubernetes, service mesh, and GitOps
• Mention platform strategy ownership and architectural decision-making
• Include information about platform innovation time and experimentation opportunities

Red Flags to Avoid

• Pure infrastructure focus without developer empathy - Platform engineers must prioritize user experience over technical elegance
• Resistance to abstraction or "not invented here" syndrome - Look for pragmatic approach to tool selection and reuse
• Inability to explain complex concepts simply - Role requires communicating with diverse technical audiences
• No experience with developer-facing tools or APIs - Platform engineering requires understanding of developer workflows
• Lack of software engineering fundamentals - Platform code must be maintainable, testable, and well-architected
• Overly prescriptive mindset - Best platform engineers balance standardization with flexibility

FAQ Section