Principal Platforms Engineer (AU)

Work with cutting edge technology, making the world a safer and more secure place. DroneShield (ASX:DRO) offers an opportunity to solve some of world’s most challenging technical problems in the Electronic Warfare, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, RF sensing, Sensor Fusion and distributed systems. Working with high profile customers across militaries, government agencies, airports, critical infrastructure, law enforcement and many others.

With one of the largest listed defence company market capitalisations in Australia and having raised approximately $250m in 2024 alone, DroneShield is undergoing hypergrowth stage, fuelled by rapidly increasing use of drones for nefarious applications, from battlefield, to terrorism, to contraband delivery and commercial espionage.

This role is in the DroneShield Sydney headquarters in Pyrmont, Sydney. There are approximately 300 staff based in the 4,000sqm facility today, scheduled to grow to approximately 350 staff by end of 2025. Overseas on the ground presence includes Virginia (USA), Denmark, Germany and Dubai, as well as distributors in over 70 countries globally.

About the role

As a Principal Platforms Engineer, you’ll play a pivotal role in shaping the next generation of platform tooling and engineering enablement at DroneShield. You’ll be a senior technical leader responsible for building the internal platforms, automation, and developer workflows that power how software is delivered—spanning CI/CD, infrastructure lifecycle, observability, and developer experience.

This role is ideal for someone who thrives on leading developers through the journey of modern software delivery—driving adoption of self-service platforms, streamlining release velocity, and embedding DevOps practices across teams. You’ll combine deep technical execution with strategic foresight, operating semi-autonomously to scope, drive, and deliver cross-functional initiatives that directly accelerate our engineering velocity.

You’ll work hands-on while influencing platform direction at scale—ensuring our internal systems are secure, reliable, maintainable, and a joy for developers to use.

This role reports to the Platforms Lead.

Responsibilities, Duties and Expectations 

• Lead the design and implementation of internal platform infrastructure—including CI/CD systems, observability tooling, and developer experience capabilities. 
• Scope, plan, and deliver large-scale engineering initiatives, collaborating across teams and functions. 
• Build, scale, and maintain observability infrastructure to support high reliability and fast debugging across environments. 
• Own key metrics (e.g. DORA) and lead initiatives that improve internal development performance and feedback loops 
• Collaborate with the security team on DevSecOps and supply chain security policies 
• Guide and support development teams on their DevSecOps journey—enabling self-service, automation, and platform adoption. 
• Design, write, and maintain automation tooling and infrastructure-as-code in Go, Python, Bash, and Terraform. 
• Mentor engineers and elevate the quality, maintainability, and usability of platform systems. 
• Influence platform-wide design decisions, internal standards, and long-term technical strategy. 

Qualifications, Experience and Skills 

• Strong hands-on experience with GitLab CI/CD and modern deployment pipelines
• Deep expertise in Infrastructure as Code using Terraform
• Experience deploying and managing observability infrastructure (Prometheus, Grafana, Loki, OpenTelemetry)
• Proficient in backend systems programming or scripting (Go, Python, Bash)
• Familiarity with Kubernetes and modern container-based architectures
• Strong background in developer experience tooling, platform APIs, SDKs, or internal CLI libraries
• Demonstrated ability to independently lead complex technical projects from design through delivery
• Clear and effective communication across engineering and non-engineering stakeholders
• Proven ability to mentor others and influence engineering culture
• Experience applying and improving DORA metrics within engineering teams
• Track record of guiding developers toward DevSecOps maturity—reducing friction and enabling ownership

Nice to have

• Experience with secrets management tools (e.g. Vault, SOPS, AWS Secrets Manager).
• Exposure to MLOps tooling and infrastructure integration.
• Familiarity with configuration management tools (e.g. Ansible, SaltStack).
• Experience improving adoption and usability of internal platforms across engineering teams.
• Contributions to internal platform frameworks or open-source infrastructure tooling.

Note for recruitment agencies: We do not accept unsolicited candidates from external recruiters unless specifically instructed.