Platform Engineer (DevX)

📋 Job Overview

K2 is building the largest and highest-power satellites ever flown, unlocking performance levels previously out of reach across every orbit. Backed by over $1 billion in total funding from leading investors including Altimeter Capital, ICONIQ, Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Redpoint Ventures, and T. Rowe Price — and with over $1 billion in signed contracts across commercial and US government customers, we're mass-producing the highest-power satellite platforms ever built for missions from LEO to deep space.

The rise of heavy-lift launch vehicles is shifting the industry from an era of mass constraint to one of mass abundance, and we believe this new era demands a fundamentally different class of spacecraft. Engineered to survive the harshest radiation environments and to fully capitalize on today's and tomorrow's massive rockets, K2 satellites deliver unmatched capability at constellation scale and across multiple orbits.

With multiple launches in 2027 and plans to scale to 100 satellites a year, we're Building Bigger — helping develop the solar system and build toward a Kardashev Type II (K2) civilization. If you are a motivated individual who thrives in a fast-paced environment and you're excited about contributing to the success of a high-growth Series D-funded company, we'd love for you to apply.

🏢 About K2 Space

The Enterprise Information Systems (EIS) team builds the digital backbone behind K2's satellite design, manufacturing, and mission operations, connecting engineering, production, and mission control so our hardware moves from concept to orbit faster. We're looking for a Platform Engineer who believes developer experience is a first-class engineering discipline. You'll build the deployment patterns, guardrails, and tooling that let engineers from many backgrounds, including those building with AI assistance, ship secure, reliable applications with minimal friction.

🎯 The Role

You'll build the deployment patterns, guardrails, and tooling that let engineers from many backgrounds, including those building with AI assistance, ship secure, reliable applications with minimal friction.

✅ Key Responsibilities

• Build and maintain golden-path deployment patterns for Amazon EKS, with built-in guardrails that get applications to production faster.
• Help drive secure, consistent AI adoption across software development, including guardrails, governance, observability, and operational support for AI-assisted workflows.
• Build automated policies and CI/CD gates that enforce code quality, test coverage, and safe deployments.
• Integrate end-to-end monitoring, alerting, and SLOs into the platform.
• Track performance and cost (latency budgets, cross-AZ transfer, IP consumption, load balancer efficiency) and act on anomalies.
• Write approachable docs and diagnostics, such as guides, diagrams, and \"why can't this connect?\" flows, that shorten support loops.
• Run proofs of concept on new AI platforms, models, and developer experience tools.
• Learn the manufacturing domain and make complex concerns like service identity and secure communication simple for platform users.

📌 Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a related field, or equivalent professional experience, plus 2+ years building developer tooling, platforms, or deployment patterns.
• Proficiency in at least one of Go, TypeScript, Python, or C#.
• Hands-on experience deploying applications on Amazon EKS.
• Experience with CI/CD (GitHub Actions or GitLab CI) and disciplined Git workflows (branching, reviews, automated gates).
• Practical experience with AI-assisted development and a clear view of its benefits and pitfalls.

⭐ Desirable Experience

• Infrastructure as code with Terraform or AWS CDK.
• Progressive delivery, such as canary rollouts, and policy-as-code.
• Observability experience with metrics, tracing, structured logs, L4/L7 telemetry, and SLI/SLO definition.
• Experience building internal developer platforms or golden-path tooling.
• Experience supporting manufacturing, aerospace, or other hardware-driven organizations.

🎁 Benefits

Base salary range for this role is $123,000 $160,000 + equity in the company
Salary will be based on several factors including, but not limited to: knowledge and skills, education, and experience level
Comprehensive benefits package including paid time off, medical/dental/vision/ coverage, life insurance, paid parental leave, and many other perks

🛂 Visa & Eligibility

As defined in the ITAR, “U.S. Persons” include U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents (i.e., Green Card holders), and certain protected individuals (e.g., refugees/asylees, American Samoans). Please consult with a knowledgeable advisor if you are unsure whether you are a “U.S. Person.”
The person hired for this role will have access to information and items controlled by U.S. export control regulations, including the export control regulations outlined in the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR). The person hired for this role must therefore either be a “U.S. person” as defined by 22 C.F.R. § 120.15 or otherwise eligible for a federally issued export control license.