Lead Platform Engineer at DigitalService GmbH des Bundes

About Us

As the federal government's central digitization unit, we measurably improve citizen interaction with the state through user-centric digital services. Beyond our own iterative product development, we drive the digital transformation of public administration by advocating for enhanced framework conditions for digital product development.

Our Platform Team builds and maintains the internal tools, services, and infrastructure that empower our project teams to build and operate scalable and reliable cloud-native applications. As Lead Platform Engineer, you will guide this crucial team, own the vision and development of platform services, and champion cloud engineering, SRE, and DevSecOps principles to ensure platform reliability. You will foster a culture of enablement and operational excellence, and drive the creation of developer-centric tools, enabling high-velocity and high-quality software delivery. More information about the platform team can be found here.

What You'll Do

• Lead and Develop the Platform Team: Shape and develop the team, orchestrate activities aligned with organizational and project priorities, taking on the People Lead role for the engineers in the Platform team with responsibilities including coaching, mentoring, and career planning.
• Drive Platform Strategy & Implementation: Bridge strategic vision with practical implementation, represent the team in decision-making with leadership and ensure alignment with organizational goals.
• Innovate & Optimize Platform Infrastructure: Develop and implement tools for simplified developer interactions, refine and evolve infrastructure-as-code setups (Terraform, ArgoCD, Kustomize, Helm) and optimize clusters for high performance.
• Communicate, Support & Enable: Cultivate a knowledge-sharing culture by creating comprehensive documentation and resources, proactively communicate platform updates and roadmaps, and provide expert consultation and support to empower project teams through primarily self-service capabilities.

What You’re Bringing

• Platform Expertise: Significant hands-on experience in platform engineering, DevOps, or SRE. You have deep expertise in cloud infrastructure, container orchestration (Kubernetes), infrastructure-as-code (Terraform), GitOps (ArgoCD, Helm, Kustomize), CI/CD systems, and observability stacks.
• Programming & Systems Skills: Proficiency in relevant programming languages (e.g., Go, Python, Java). Strong understanding of Linux system administration and fundamental networking principles.
• Strategic Vision & Clear Communication: Proven experience creating and implementing platform strategies, successfully integrating them into wider organizations and demonstrating the ability to think beyond the platform to prioritize both internal and external stakeholder needs alongside team priorities.
• Product Mindset: You approach internal platforms with a customer-centric view, focusing on understanding developer needs and delivering valuable, user-friendly solutions. You excel at communicating technical concepts clearly to diverse audiences and collaborating effectively across teams.
• Leadership Experience: You have proven experience leading or mentoring engineers, guiding technical decisions, and fostering a collaborative team environment. You bring a solution-oriented mindset, strong teamwork and a commitment to continuous learning.
• Motivation for Public Service: You're excited about the idea of digitalizing public administration and are comfortable working in English (German is a plus).

Why Join Our Team

• Become part of a mission-driven team that shares a common vision: to develop user-centered digital solutions with the federal administration.
• Our over 50 engineers (all genders) are characterized by technical excellence, very high team and communication skills, and a genuine agile mindset. And of course, we look forward to you as a new team member. You can find more information about Software Engineering @DigitalService in our blog article here.
• Our growing organization offers ideal conditions for now over 200 digital experts. “New Work” is not a project for us, but an integral part of our culture. Flexible working hours, spaces for (hybrid) collaboration, efficient tool use, high employee orientation, and a self-image as a learning organization characterize us.
• Our compensation system is based on comparability, reliability, and fairness. The salary range for this position is between 90,000 - 105,000 euros gross per year (full-time). For your individual classification within our salary bands and levels, we take into account the scope of responsibility of the position, the complexity of the activities, and the assessment of your skills from the interviews. Details on our level and salary system can be found in this blog post.

Our Benefits & Perks

• Compensation & Financial Security: Competitive salary, attractive pension scheme, and individual budget (e.g., for food, technology, mobility or Urban Sports M).
• Work Environment & Culture: Modern office, choice of tech, and agile, iterative principles.
• Learning & Development: Annual training budget of up to €2,000 and five training days.
• Work-Life Integration: Flexible hours and workation options of up to six weeks in European countries.
• Health & Well-being: Professional support for your mental health through nilo.health.

Recruiting Process & Contact Persons

We champion diversity, equity and inclusion. We welcome applications from all backgrounds, regardless of religion, nationality, ethnicity, gender, age, worldview, sexual identity, or disability. To ensure fair and unbiased evaluation, we ask that you omit photos and personal details like residence, age, or marital status from your CV.

We will provide details about the selection process during the screening call.

We're here to support you! Reach out to our Talent Acquisition Partnerin Corinna at [email protected].