Senior Platform Engineer (IT Services)
Senior platform engineer on Charles River Associates' internal IT team, designing and automating hybrid infrastructure spanning on-prem VMware datacenters and Azure/AWS cloud. Day-to-day centers on infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, Bicep, Ansible), CI/CD and GitOps pipelines, cloud identity, hybrid networking, governance/FinOps, and observability, working on-site 3-4 days a week.
- Compensation
- Not disclosed
- Location
- Boston, MA, United States; Chicago, IL, United States; Dallas, Texas, United States
- Work setup
- Not specified
- Seniority
- Senior
- Employment
- Not specified
- Experience
- Not specified
- Category
- Devops
- Posted
Skills
Must have
- Bachelor's degree in a relevant technology-related discipline (Master's preferred)
- 8+ years supporting enterprise-scale infrastructure and multi-cloud hyperscalers (Azure, AWS, GCP)
- 5+ years working with Terraform and advanced understanding of Infrastructure-as-Code methodologies
- Deep experience designing, building, and operating CI/CD pipelines and GitOps workflows using GitHub Actions, Jenkins, and enterprise source control
- Experience building automation using Ansible, Bash, PowerShell, Python scripting, and REST APIs
- Experience with cloud governance, policy management, and FinOps practices
- Understanding of cloud networking, DNS, cloud-enabled identity services, security controls, and hybrid connectivity
- Hands-on experience with Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, Application Insights, Grafana, Datadog, Splunk, or similar observability platforms
Nice to have
- Azure/AWS Solutions Architect or cloud-related certifications
- HashiCorp Terraform Associate or Advanced certifications
- Familiarity with Internal Developer Platforms (IDP)
- Experience with VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF), vSphere, and hybrid cloud architectures
- Hands-on experience with Kubernetes, AKS, EKS, or OpenShift
- Experience with Databricks infrastructure, AI platform hosting, or enterprise data platforms
- Experience integrating AIOps, observability, or monitoring platforms
Full description
About Charles River Associates
For over 50 years, Charles River Associates has been a premier consulting firm that offers employees a place to learn from a diverse group of consultants, industry experts, and academics. At CRA you will be exposed to leading minds who use economic, financial, and business analysis to solve complex world problems for an impressive roster of clients, including major law firms, Fortune 100 companies, and government agencies. Through a collegial environment, formal and informal training opportunities, and a broad array of professional development resources, your experience at CRA will open doors for you throughout your career.
Position Overview
The Information Technology (ITS) department at Charles River Associates is currently a team of more than 40 professionals dedicated to enhancing, maintaining, and developing the firm's technology infrastructure and security based in offices around the globe. The team is comprised of four functions: Service Delivery & Telecom, Enterprise Application Solutions, Infrastructure, Networking and Cloud Solutions, Information Security. Primarily a Microsoft house, CRA is looking to maximize the performance of our on-premise systems and hybrid infrastructure, meaning experience with cloud technologies is essential for this role.
The Senior Platform Engineer is responsible for designing, building, and continuously improving the firm's hybrid infrastructure platforms spanning on-premises datacenters and public cloud environments. This role focuses on platform engineering practices, automation, infrastructure-as-code, and operational excellence to deliver scalable, secure, and self-service infrastructure services.
The engineer will partner closely with cloud, networking, security, automation, and application teams to create reusable platform capabilities, automate infrastructure lifecycle management, and enable modernization initiatives across the enterprise. This position plays a key role in advancing CRA's hybrid cloud strategy through platform standardization, governance, observability, cost optimization, and automation-first operational practices. Primary responsibilities include:
Platform Engineering & Service Enablement
- Design, build, and maintain hybrid infrastructure platforms supporting public cloud and on-premises environments.
- Develop reusable platform services that enable self-service provisioning and standardized infrastructure deployment.
- Establish platform standards, golden images, reference architectures, and engineering guardrails.
- Contribute to enterprise platform roadmaps and modernization initiatives.
Infrastructure Automation & IaC
- Develop and maintain Infrastructure-as-Code solutions using Terraform, Terraform Cloud, Bicep, Ansible, and automation frameworks.