Principal Platform Engineer

Description

This position is eligible for teleworking, which is currently 2 days per week. New hires are eligible to apply 30 days after their effective date of hire.

Opening

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is North America's largest transportation network, serving a population of 15.3 million people across a 5,000-square-mile travel area surrounding New York City, Long Island, southeastern New York State, and Connecticut. The MTA network comprises the nation’s largest bus fleet and more subway and commuter rail cars than all other U.S. transit systems combined. MTA strives to provide a safe and reliable commute, excellent customer service, and rewarding opportunities.

About Us

The MTA transportation network has a very large system and infrastructure for financial, business, automated train, transportation, power, and physical security. The MTA IT Department is centrally responsible for providing a full range of Information and Operational Technology services to the MTA agencies and administrative units through its operating and support units. Services are provided on a 24/7/365 basis in support of the MTA organization and its ridership.

MTA IT’s Product Development group is empowered; multi-functional teams focused on the end-to-end management of development products from strategy to delivery. Using innovative processes and tools, the teams are responsible for developing and maintaining highly effective, secure, and innovative transportation, operational, and back-end information systems to support MTA goals and priorities.

Summary

The Principal Platform Engineer plays a critical role in ensuring the stability, scalability, and continuous improvement of our enterprise service-management capabilities. As the MTA expands its reliance on digital workflows and automation, the demand for a dedicated engineering resource to support, enhance, and optimize enterprise-wide platforms has become essential toward reducing the MTA IT department’s reliance on a managed service provider.

This role provides technical and strategic leadership across the full software development lifecycle for high-impact, complex systems supporting critical business and operational functions. This role supports, coordinates, and manages IT Service Management platforms and collaborates with other IT teams to ensure successful project implementation. This role diagnoses problems and provides recommendations to improve existing and new systems. This role serves as the technical owner for assigned enterprise platforms, accountable for platform architecture, configuration, performance optimization, integrations, and long-term platform strategy.

Critical Skills:

•    Experience supporting enterprise middleware platforms supporting mission-critical systems (Oracle WebLogic, OHS, OTD, WebSphere, Tomcat)
•    Experience with support of secure access architectures using Oracle Access Manager (OAM) for SSO and federation
•    Experience with working with  F5 BIG-IP (LTM/GSLB) for load balancing, SSL offload, and high-availability traffic management
•    Experience in supporting and understanding of end-to-end application flows (F5 → web tier → middleware → backend), including session persistence and headers
•    Experience supporting and middleware platforms using Red Hat OpenShift (OSD/ROSA) and cloud (AWS/OCI) with containerized workloads
•    Strong experience in troubleshooting complex distributed systems, including network/MTU issues, SSL/TLS errors, and session behavior
•    Experience building and implement infrastructure automation (Terraform, Ansible) across hybrid on-prem and cloud environments
•    Experience developing and supporting CI/CD pipelines (Jenkins, GitHub) for middleware deployment and lifecycle management
•    Collaborate cross-functionally with Infrastructure, Security, Network, and Application teams to drive stability and modernization

Responsibilities

• Serves as a technical resource for multiple components of the enterprise platforms to help identify the best technical solutions.
• Troubleshoot platform issues within assigned areas, isolating and resolving faults that technology interdependencies may complicate.
• Design scalable, maintainable, and secure solutions across multiple platform modules (e.g., ITSM, ITOM, HRSD, SecOps, GRC, CSM).
• Evaluates and implements new platform capabilities, plugins, and integrations to support evolving business needs.
• Defines and enforces platform governance, including data model design, naming conventions, and development standards
• Owns and governs the lifecycle of mission-critical software products and services. Aligns project execution with strategic business goals, ensuring enterprise architecture compliance and effective application of change, release, risk, and quality management practices.
• Establishes and optimizes robust support processes, leveraging advanced tools to analyze and resolve complex technical issues, monitor system health, and produce actionable operational insights. Ensuring systems remain resilient, performant, and maintainable.
• Reviews and approves platform enhancements to ensure appropriate technology use, optimize resource utilization, and facilitate a smooth transition to production.
• Oversee the development and execution of comprehensive test plans, ensuring test coverage aligns with business risk and regulatory requirements.
• Reviews solutions produced by lower-level Developers and Platform Engineers (Levels 1 - 5) and validates adherence to strategy and architecture standards.
• Guide development teams on implementation best practices and ensure adherence to architectural standards.
• Oversee integrations with third-party systems using Integration Hub, REST/SOAP APIs, and other tools.
• Lead platform upgrades, new module rollouts, and performance optimization efforts.
• Create and maintain architecture diagrams, technical documentation, and solution blueprints.
• Participate in governance reviews and provide technical sign-off on major platform changes.
• Stay current with platform releases and recommend adoption of new features and capabilities.
• Leads efforts to maintain accurate system documentation and configuration records. Conducts audits to ensure compliance with established software configuration management and governance standards.
• Directs software quality assurance and risk management initiatives. Conducts in-depth safety assessments, identifies software-related risks, and drives implementation of preventive and corrective actions.
• Serves as a technical thought leader and mentor within the engineering organization. Stays at the forefront of emerging software trends and technologies and cultivates a culture of continuous innovation and technical excellence.
• Champions' adoption of modern engineering methodologies, frameworks, and tools across teams and projects.
• Maintain Application-to-Server Mappings by establishing the necessary governance, processes, and data requirements for all service owners.
• Collaborate with business stakeholders to define and collect necessary Configuration Item (CI) attributes and relationship information.
•  Leads the technical security of the platform, monitoring and managing the configuration items, managing access controls/operating systems/ databases (CMDB), configuring MID servers, and taking proactive measures against potential cyber threats. Enforces defined security protocols, manages access controls, ensures compliance with security standards, and assists with handling security incidents.
• Manages the operational relationships with technology suppliers to ensure potential disputes or conflicts are raised and resolved.
• Contributes to the technical elements of RFPs/RFIs and supports negotiations on contract terms and SLAs. Manages suppliers to meet key performance indicators.
• Travel may be required to other MTA locations or other external sites.
• May need to work outside normal hours to support 24/7 operations (e.g., evenings and weekends). 
• Performs other duties and tasks as assigned. 
• Observing the work performed by the contractor.
• Reviewing invoices and approving them if the work meets contractual standards.
• Addressing performance issues with the contractor when possible.
• Escalating issues to other parties as needed. 
• Regular and reliable attendance is expected and required.

Required Qualifications

• Education: Bachelor’s degree and a minimum of 10 years of relevant experience. An equivalent combination of education and experience may be considered in lieu of a degree. 
• Certification(s): Requires at least multiple certifications in the current platform/domain/technical skill. Possible certifications could be, but are not limited to: 

Technical Skills

• Proven experience as an enterprise platform architect with a focus on CMDB and CSDM.
• Deep understanding of ITIL, configuration management, and enterprise architecture principles.
• Hands-on experience with ServiceNow Discovery, Service Mapping, and Integration Hub / Event Management.
• Strong hands-on experience with core enterprise platform capabilities, including ITSM, ITOM, CMDB, CSM, HRSD, Enterprise Architecture, SecOps, GRC, and SPM. 
• REST/SOAP APIs, MID Server configuration, Integration Hub spokes.
• Experience integrating with tools like Azure, AWS, Jira, SCCM, Dynatrace, and Splunk.
• Experience developing platform logic and automation using scripting languages (e.g., JavaScript, Glide API), server‑side and client‑side APIs, reusable code modules, business rules, UI logic, and configuration policies
• Flow Designer, Workflow Editor, and Integration Hub.
• Experience designing and building custom applications using enterprise development frameworks, platform tooling, and configuration environments
• Strong knowledge of CI class modeling, relationship mapping, and data normalization.
• Familiarity with ATF (Automated Test Framework), Update Sets, and Source Control Integration.
• Experience with DevOps pipelines and Agile methodologies.
• Role-based access control (RBAC), ACLs, and data security best practices.
• Platform performance tuning and governance frameworks.
• Knowledge of ITIL v4, Agile/Scrum, and enterprise architecture frameworks (TOGAF, Zachman).
• Experience with Performance Analytics, Virtual Agent, and Predictive Intelligence is a plus.
• Ability to translate business requirements into technical solutions.
• Excellent communication, documentation, and stakeholder management skills.

Behavioral Skills

• Advanced active listening, attention to detail, customer service, prioritization, and problem-solving skills.
• Expert in working independently and strategically.
• Advanced expertise in identifying and analyzing risks and developing effective mitigation strategies.
• Expert technical knowledge and a diverse skillset to understand various technologies, systems, and potential risks.
• Advanced critical thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making skills.
• Expert in interpersonal, verbal, and written communication skills, with the ability to effectively collaborate with both technical and non-technical peers.
• Expert in managing multiple projects simultaneously and prioritizing tasks based on urgency and impact.
• Extensive hands-on experience with related tools.
• Expert experience working under pressure and meeting deadlines individually and collaboratively. Thinks logically, assesses problems, and is results-oriented.
• Expert in identifying complex business and technology risks and associated vulnerabilities.
• Expert in communicating effectively, both orally and in writing, to interact with team members, customers, management, and support personnel (technical and non-technical).
• Expert in establishing and maintaining effective working relationships with employees at all levels within the organization, and with both internal and external customers.

Competencies