Principal Platform Engineer
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts
COMPANY OVERVIEW
KKR is a leading global investment firm that offers alternative asset management as well as capital markets and insurance solutions. KKR aims to generate attractive investment returns by following a patient and disciplined investment approach, employing world-class people, and supporting growth in its portfolio companies and communities. KKR sponsors investment funds that invest in private equity, credit and real assets and has strategic partners that manage hedge funds. KKR’s insurance subsidiaries offer retirement, life and reinsurance products under the management of Global Atlantic Financial Group. References to KKR’s investments may include the activities of its sponsored funds and insurance subsidiaries.
TEAM OVERVIEW
KKR’s Technology team is responsible for building and supporting the firm’s technological foundation. Technology is regarded as a key business enabler at KKR and is an important accelerator for global scale and business process transformation. We drive a culture of excellence by evolving the firm’s technology to platform-based capabilities that drive agility and high impact to the business.
POSITION SUMMARY
KKR is seeking a Principal Platform Engineer to serve as a hands-on technical leader within our high-performing Platform Engineering team. This individual will be central to enabling our public cloud strategy, advancing our DevOps culture, and driving the adoption of opinionated, microservices-based architecture for applications across the firm.
This role is for a forward-thinking expert focused on building the platforms and tools that increase developer efficiency and velocity. As a technical thought leader, you will partner with a global team to evolve the firm’s technology to a modern, platform-based model, driving significant agility and business impact.
RESPONSIBILITIES
- Platform Strategy & Architecture: Design and build the foundational cloud-native platforms for the firm. Develop a strategic roadmap for CI/CD, container orchestration, and Infrastructure as Code (IaC) that enables developer self-service and operational excellence.
- Developer Enablement & Efficiency: Champion developer efficiency by creating paved roads, reusable components, and abstracted services. Build and maintain the tools, frameworks, and automated pipelines that accelerate the software development lifecycle.
- Innovation & Thought Leadership: Act as a subject matter expert on modern platform engineering. Research, prototype, and implement next-generation technologies in areas like service mesh, observability, and cloud-native security.
- Technical Mentorship & Evangelism: Provide expert guidance and mentorship to platform and application engineers. Evangelize DevOps principles and platform-based development practices throughout the technology organization.
- Cross-Functional Partnership: Collaborate closely with application development, cybersecurity, and infrastructure teams to ensure the platform meets their evolving needs and enables them to deliver value quickly and securely.
- Complex Problem Solving: Serve as a key escalation point for complex technical challenges related to distributed systems, cloud services, and application deployment pipelines.
QUALIFICATIONS
- Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Engineering, or a related field; an advanced degree is desirable.
- 12+ years of hands-on experience in platform engineering, DevOps, or software engineering with a focus on building and operating platforms at scale.
- Expert-level, hands-on expertise with public cloud platforms (AWS, Azure) and container orchestration technologies (Kubernetes, Docker).
- Deep experience with Infrastructure as Code (e.g., Terraform) and CI/CD tools (e.g., GitHub/GitLab CI, Jenkins).
- Strong programming skills in languages such as Java and Python, and experience with scripting for automation.
- Proven understanding of microservices architectures, service mesh (e.g., Istio), API gateways, and modern observability practices.
- Track record of leading the design and implementation of platforms and tools that measurably improve developer velocity and efficiency.
- Exceptional communication skills, capable of articulating complex technical strategy to engineers and senior leadership.
#LI-ONSITE
KKR is an equal opportunity employer. Individuals seeking employment are considered without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, marital status, ancestry, physical or mental disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, or any other category protected by applicable law.