A

Axle

Translational research informatics and data science

IT Platform Engineering Manager

Full-Time
$150k - $180k
Senior
Tysons, VA, USA
HybridHybrid position local to the DC Metro Area.
Engineering ManagementEngineering Leadership
No H1B Sponsorship
US Citizenship Required

About the job

Requirements
  • Demonstrated experience managing or leading platform engineering, DevOps, infrastructure, or site reliability engineering teams, including mentoring engineers and delivering technical initiatives.
  • At least 4 years of hands-on experience managing production Kubernetes clusters, including operations, troubleshooting, upgrades, and workload optimization.
  • Strong proficiency with Helm charts for application deployment and configuration management.
  • Extensive experience with Docker and Docker Compose, including multi-container architectures, image optimization, and secure container design.
  • Advanced Linux administration skills across multiple distributions, including package management, networking, storage, permissions, and system performance.
  • Strong troubleshooting skills for network, DNS, API, and service connectivity issues in distributed systems.
  • Hands-on experience with log management, monitoring, and observability tools such as Prometheus, Grafana, and CloudWatch.
  • Advanced scripting skills in Bash, Python, or similar languages for automation, tooling, and system integrations.
  • Proven experience with system hardening, security best practices, and vulnerability remediation across cloud infrastructure and containerized environments.
  • Proficiency with AWS services and tools, including EKS, EC2, IAM, CloudWatch, Security Groups, and VPC networking.
  • Experience designing and maintaining CI/CD pipelines with automated testing, security checks, and reliable deployment and rollback processes.
  • Proficiency with Terraform, including reusable modules, state management, and integration into infrastructure deployment workflows.
  • Strong communication and planning skills, with the ability to explain technical tradeoffs, delegate effectively, and align engineering work with business priorities.
  • Employment is limited to U.S. persons as defined by federal regulations; eligible categories are U.S. citizens, U.S. nationals, lawful permanent residents, asylees, and refugees.
Responsibilities
  • Lead and develop the platform engineering team through hiring, coaching, performance management, and clear ownership of delivery and operational responsibilities.
  • Own the platform roadmap and engineering standards. Prioritize work, manage team capacity, and communicate progress, dependencies, and technical risks to stakeholders.
  • Oversee and contribute to production Kubernetes operations, including cluster upgrades, Helm deployments, workload optimization, capacity planning, and application availability.
  • Establish DevSecOps practices across CI/CD pipelines, including code, dependency, container, and infrastructure scanning; secrets management; and risk-based vulnerability remediation.
  • Guide AWS architecture and infrastructure security, including identity and access management, network segmentation, system hardening, and secure container design.
  • Standardize infrastructure provisioning and configuration through reusable Terraform modules, scripting, and version-controlled deployment workflows that reduce manual work.
  • Own observability and operational readiness. Define service reliability objectives and maintain actionable monitoring, alerting, logs, runbooks, and tested recovery procedures.
  • Lead incident response and technical escalations, coordinate stakeholder communications, and turn root-cause findings into improvements that prevent recurring failures.
  • Manage infrastructure costs and capacity, contribute to budget planning, and evaluate tools and vendors against security, reliability, and business requirements.
  • Partner with development, security, and business stakeholders to set platform priorities, improve the developer experience, and embed security throughout the software delivery lifecycle.
  • Guide the team while contributing directly to architecture, automation, and complex troubleshooting.

About the company

Axle Informatics provides specialized informatics solutions for translational research, health informatics, and data science to biomedical research centers and healthcare organizations. Its offerings are customized software and data management platforms that help researchers collect, integrate, analyze, and visualize large research datasets, with end-to-end tools that automate data aggregation and deliver analytics, dashboards, and decision-support features. The company differentiates itself with an integrated, scientifically informed approach that bridges data science with application development, specifically focused on translational research and clinical data work rather than generic software. Axle’s goal is to advance public health by moving biomedical discoveries from the lab to bedside, improving healthcare outcomes.

Company Size

201-500

Company Stage

N/A

Total Funding

N/A

Headquarters

Rockville, Maryland

Founded

2002

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Simplify's Take

What believers are saying

  • Axle secured a $21 million NCATS support contract starting February 2025.
  • Axle won a 2026 NHLBI systems biology task for single-cell genomics work.
  • Axle’s May 2026 NIH and SK pharmteco partnership expands credibility in rare-disease gene therapy.

What critics are saying

  • NIH concentration makes Axle vulnerable if NCATS and NHLBI rebid work in 2026.
  • Axle filed and lost GAO protests in August 2026, signaling procurement pressure.
  • Federal budget lapses instantly freeze specialized scientific services; Axle’s core contracts depend on appropriated NIH funding.

What makes Axle unique

  • Axle Informatics won NIH NCATS and NHLBI work in 2025-2026.
  • Axle combines biomedical staff scientists, cloud engineering, and translational research program management.
  • Axle’s NIH foothold includes rare-disease gene therapy collaboration with SK pharmteco, May 2026.

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Benefits

  • Health Insurance
  • Dental Insurance
  • Vision Insurance
  • Paid Vacation
  • Paid Holidays
  • 401(k) Company Match
  • Educational Benefits for Career Growth
  • Employee Referral Bonus
  • Flexible Spending Accounts

Company News

TheGWW.com
Jul 25th, 2023
“Octo awarded $64.7M IT Infrastructure Call Order to support NCI’s Cancer research”

Octo, in partnership with Unissant, Axle Informatics, and TRex, has been awarded an IT Infrastructure and Operations Call Order to support the NCI’s OCIO.

GlobeNewswire
Jan 12th, 2023
Digital Pathology Market Worth $1.86 Billion by 2030 -

For instance, in May 2020, Indica Labs (U.S.), a provider of digital pathology solutions, collaborated with information technology consulting companies, Octo (U.S.) and Axle Informatics (U.S.) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) (U.S.), to develop an online collection of high-resolution histopathology images of tissues from COVID-19 patients using Indica’s HALO Link platform.