Senior Platform Engineer-QA/Release Specialist
Bridger Photonics
Job Description
Overview
Bridger Photonics is transforming methane emissions detection for the oil & gas industry. Our Gas Mapping LiDAR pinpoints leaks with precision, delivering actionable data that helps customers reduce emissions, improve safety, and streamline operations.
Our mission: Enable clean, safe, and efficient energy systems through cutting-edge airborne sensing and data science. Join a growing team of engineers, scientists, and innovators committed to impact.
Our team’s mission is to provide a modern, batteries-included developer platform in the cloud. We build the paved roads that enable teams to self-service infrastructure, adopt best practices by default, and shift left on testing, security, and release quality.
Responsibilities may include, but are not limited to:
- Advance our cloud-native platform with automation, observability, and self-service.
- Establish and evolve frameworks for QA and release gating that shift quality left.
- Design opinionated workflows that enable developers to own quality and releases.
- Improve the reliability, transparency, and velocity of software delivery.
Platform Engineering Responsibilities
- Contribute to the design, operation, and evolution of our AWS-based Kubernetes platform using Terraform, GitLab CI, and ArgoCD.
- Implement observability, monitoring, and alerting frameworks that integrate seamlessly into developer workflows.
- Collaborate across teams to embed modern platform practices and improve developer experience.
QA/Release Automation Responsibilities
- Define and maintain holistic QA and release strategies that prioritize automation over manual testing.
- Build and integrate automated testing frameworks (static analysis, unit, integration, regression) into CI/CD pipelines.
- Establish release gating mechanisms (automated checks, manual approvals, branch/tag strategies) that balance speed with safety.
- Provide opinionated defaults and batteries-included tooling for developers to self-service quality practices.
- Leverage AI/agentic workflows to enhance test automation, release management, and reporting.
- Define and implement clear quality metrics (coverage, rollback rates, defect escape rates, release cadence).
- Drive best practices for code review, release notes, and stakeholder communication.
Requirements
Required Qualifications
- 8+ years of experience in platform engineering, site reliability engineering, or DevOps.
- Proven experience with automated testing frameworks and release pipelines.
- Strong programming skills (Python, Go, or equivalent) with a focus on automation.
- Hands-on expertise with:
- Kubernetes in production (preferably AWS EKS).
- AWS cloud services (e.g., EC2, S3, RDS, IAM, networking).
- Infrastructure as Code (Terraform).
- CI/CD tooling (GitLab CI, ArgoCD, GitHub Actions, etc.).
- Deep understanding of SDLC practices, release management, and observability.
- Excellent collaboration and mentorship skills.
- Experience applying QA and release practices in modern, cloud-native environments.
- Ability to design frameworks that scale across multiple teams and products.
Preferred Qualifications
- Familiarity with AI-driven testing, QA automation, or intelligent release workflows.
- Strong knowledge of secure software supply chain practices.
- Ability to design frameworks that scale across multiple teams and products.
Measure of Success
- Releases are shipped with greater reliability, fewer rollbacks, and higher transparency.
- Developers adopt self-service QA and release workflows with minimal friction.
- Platform improvements measurably increase delivery speed and quality.
- Observability and automation reduce mean time to detect and resolve issues.
- The platform team is trusted as an opinionated guide for quality, release, and automation practices.
- This is a full-time salaried position.
- Salary is commensurate with education, experience, and skills.
- This position is based at Bridger’s facility in Bozeman, MT.
- Occasional travel may be required.
- Participation in on-call incident response rotation expected.
- Bridger Photonics, Inc. is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
- United States Employment Eligibility: Bridger does not offer visa sponsorships. If you are hired, you will be required to fill out the US Department of Homeland Security’s I-9 form confirming you are able to work in the US.
Benefits
Bridger Photonics, Inc. offers excellent health, dental, and retirement benefits.
A career with Bridger Photonics offers cutting-edge photonics and remote sensing work and endless outdoor opportunities in and around beautiful Bozeman, Montana. With experts in physics, engineering, software development, and processing, our team works hard to create top-of-the-line LiDAR technologies that positively impact society—now and for generations to come.