Staff Cloud Platform Engineer

Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies is a joint venture between two industry leaders with a clear vision for automotive's next chapter. From operating systems to zonal controllers to cloud and connectivity solutions, we're addressing the challenges of electric vehicles through technology that will set the standards for software-defined vehicles around the world.  

The road to the future is uncharted. By combining our expertise across connectivity, AI, security and more, we'll map a new way forward. Working together, we'll create a future that's more connected, more intelligent, more sustainable for everyone.

We are seeking a foundational Cloud Infrastructure Engineer or SRE to define and own the infrastructure components that power our platform. You will be responsible for creating and maintaining the foundation that supports our services and applications. This role demands a deep understanding of infrastructure and DevOps principles, a passion for automation, and a strong commitment to delivering exceptional developer experiences.

Your First Mission:

While you will ultimately support all development teams, your initial focus will be a deep, high-impact embed with our Connectivity team. You will lead the modernization and scaling of their cloud infrastructure by migrating their core NATS messaging platform and microservice deployments to our company-wide standard architecture using Crossplane and Kubernetes. The goal is to build a secure, reliable, and scalable foundation capable of supporting millions of next-generation vehicles.

Platform Architecture: Architect and build core, reusable infrastructure frameworks on AWS using Crossplane, Helm, and Kubernetes, owning the solutions for messaging (NATS), stream processing, and other foundational services.

Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Own the platform's IaC strategy, developing foundational Crossplane modules and automation to be used by all engineering teams.

NATS Messaging Infrastructure: Architect, build, and own the NATS cluster deployment, the core of our vehicle communication fabric. Own its reliability, scalability, and lifecycle management in a multi-cluster cloud environment.

CI/CD & Developer Experience: Design and own the GitLab CI pipeline templates and automation that enable developers to ship code securely and efficiently.

Cloud Networking & Security: Own the networking layer for our services, including VPC design, ingress/egress control, and the configuration of security components to protect our platform.

Kubernetes & Reliability: Own the reliability, scalability, and lifecycle management of the EKS clusters, including health monitoring, capacity planning, and streamlining upgrade processes.

Observability & Incident Response: Build and support the team's self-service observability platform (Datadog, Prometheus). Participate in an on-call rotation, and drive systemic improvements.

Collaboration: Act as a subject matter expert on infrastructure and SRE, consulting with development teams and managing secure processes for vendor and 3rd-party integrations.

A passion for building developer-centric platforms that act as a force multiplier for an engineering organization.

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

Experience: Minimum of 8 years of professional experience in software engineering, with a significant focus on cloud infrastructure, DevOps, or SRE.

IaC & GitOps Mastery: Deep expertise with Infrastructure as Code (Crossplane and/or Terraform) and GitOps tools (ArgoCD, Flux).

Kubernetes & AWS Expertise: Extensive knowledge of Kubernetes (preferably EKS) and the AWS ecosystem in a production environment at scale.

CI/CD Architecture: Proven experience designing and building complex CI/CD pipelines from the ground up, preferably with GitLab CI.

Production Messaging Systems Experience: Experience deploying and managing a messaging system (e.g., NATS, Kafka, MQTT) in a production environment.

Programming Proficiency: Strong proficiency in a language like Go, Python, or Bash for building automation and tooling.

Systems Design: A proven ability to design and implement scalable, resilient, and secure distributed systems.

Nice to have:

Hands-on experience with Envoy for networking and security.

Experience formally mentoring other engineers or acting as a team lead.

Relevant AWS or Kubernetes certifications (e.g., CKA, AWS Certified DevOps Engineer).

#LI-hybrid

Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender expression, gender identity, genetic information or characteristics, physical or mental disability, marital/domestic partner status, age, military/veteran status, medical condition, or any other characteristic protected by law. We are also committed to ensuring compliance with all applicable fair employment practice laws regarding citizenship and immigration status.

Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies is committed to ensuring that our hiring process is accessible for persons with disabilities. If you have a disability or limitation, such as those covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act, that requires accommodations to assist you in the search and application process, please email us at 

Rivian and VW Group Technologies ("Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies") may collect, use and disclose your personal information or personal data (within the meaning of the applicable data protection laws) when you apply for employment and/or participate in our recruitment processes ("Candidate Personal Data"). This data includes contact, demographic, communications, educational, professional, employment, social media/website, network/device, recruiting system usage/interaction, security and preference information. Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies may use your Candidate Personal Data for the purposes of (i) tracking interactions with our recruiting system; (ii) carrying out, analyzing and improving our application and recruitment process, including assessing you and your application and conducting employment, background and reference checks; (iii) establishing an employment relationship or entering into an employment contract with you; (iv) complying with our legal, regulatory and corporate governance obligations; (v) recordkeeping; (vi) ensuring network and information security and preventing fraud; and (vii) as otherwise required or permitted by applicable law. 

Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies may share your Candidate Personal Data with (i) internal personnel who have a need to know such information in order to perform their duties, including individuals on our People Team, Finance, Legal, and the team(s) with the position(s) for which you are applying; (ii) Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies affiliates; and (iii) Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies' service providers, including providers of background checks, staffing services, and cloud services. 

Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies may transfer or store internationally your Candidate Personal Data, including to or in the United States, Canada, and the European Union and in the cloud, and this data may be subject to the laws and accessible to the courts, law enforcement and national security authorities of such jurisdictions. 

Please see our Candidate Data Privacy Notice (English) and Candidate Data Privacy Notice (Serbian) for more information.

Please note that we are currently not accepting applications from third party application services.