Principal Platform Engineer

Speridian Technologies is recruiting for a Principal Platform Engineer for our State of California Client- the Department of Healthcare Services, Behavioral Health. This person will be part of a long-term, fully budgeted, state-of-the-art, extremely vast, IT modernization project working with a variety of cross-functional teams and stakeholders.

This is a remote role, however there will be meetings in the Sacramento area several times a year. Candidates are expected to work business hours, Monday-Friday PST. 


Join DHCS’s Behavioral Health Transformation: Where Purpose Meets Innovation
Position: Principal Platform Engineer
Location: Remote/Hybrid
Department: Department of Healthcare Services (DHCS)
Commitment: Full-Time Consultant (W2 employee of Speridian or 1099/IC for Speridian) 

Why DHCS?
At DHCS we are leading a transformative journey in Behavioral Health, reshaping systems and services to ensure better outcomes for communities across California. Our Behavioral Health transformation initiative is more than a project—it’s a movement to make California a leader in accessible, high-quality health services. We’re setting the stage for a new era of government services built on agile methodologies, cutting-edge technology, continuous improvement, and a relentless commitment to serving the public good.
At DHCS, we’re looking for innovators who are passionate about purposeful work and excited by the opportunity to drive lasting change through innovative solutions.

Our Core Values (Achieve Together, Be Curious, Elevate Yourself, and Deliver Value)

• We achieve together by championing a team-oriented workplace built on mutual respect, collaboration, and open communication.  
• We encourage individuals and teams to constantly be curious and seek a deeper understanding and fresh ideas that drive innovation and meaningful change.
• We provide a supportive workplace where you can elevate yourself and achieve personal growth through continuous learning, focused effort, and perseverance.
• We deliver value as part of every action we take to serve California’s citizens.

Overview of Role-
Principal Platform Engineer plays a strategic role in defining and governing the organization's architecture strategy and solutions. They are responsible for aligning business goals with IT strategy, driving standardization and interoperability across systems, and ensuring that architectural decisions support long-term business objectives and scalability. Additionally, they provide technical leadership and guidance to ensure the successful design and implementation of complex software systems and solutions.


What You’ll Do?

• Architecture Strategy: Develop and communicate the enterprise architecture vision, strategy, and principles, aligning with business objectives and IT strategy. Define the target state architecture and roadmap, identifying opportunities for innovation, optimization, and transformation.
  • Outcome: Clear alignment between business goals and IT strategy, with a roadmap for achieving strategic objectives.
• Technical Mentorship and Leadership: Provide technical leadership and mentorship to development teams, guiding them in architectural design principles, best practices, and emerging technologies. Foster a culture of innovation, collaboration, and continuous learning to drive technical excellence with a hands-on approach.
  • Outcome: Empowered and skilled development teams capable of delivering high-quality software solutions.
• Hands-On Development: Do code reviews, prototype, build reference code, and when required help deliver software & infrastructure automation in a collaborative fashion with development teams.
• Enterprise-wide Governance: Establish and enforce architectural governance processes, standards, and best practices to ensure consistency, interoperability, and compliance across systems and projects. Define architecture review boards and mechanisms for assessing and approving architectural decisions.
  • Outcome: Consistent and standardized architectures that promote reusability, scalability, and agility.
• Business Capability Modeling: Define and maintain business capability models and architecture blueprints that capture the organization's business processes, functions, and information flows. Analyze and optimize business capabilities to drive efficiency, agility, and innovation.
  • Outcome: Clear understanding of business capabilities and their alignment with technology solutions.
• Technology Portfolio Management: Manage the organization's technology portfolio, including applications, platforms, and infrastructure components. Conduct technology assessments, rationalization, and modernization efforts to optimize the technology stack and support business goals.
  • Outcome: Optimized technology portfolio aligned with business priorities and strategic objectives.
• Cloud Native Architecture: Develop and communicate cloud-native architecture strategies, patterns, and practices that align with architecture strategy and enterprise-wide governance. Define and design architecture automation processes using DevOps practices and a Platform as a Product approach to support application and service implementations.
  • Outcome: Clear alignment between business goals, Architecture strategy, and Enterprise governance to achieve a scalable and maintainable cloud-native architecture.
• Enterprise-wide Integration: Define integration architectures and standards to enable seamless data exchange and interoperability across systems, applications, and platforms. Design and implement integration solutions that support real-time data sharing, business process automation, and digital transformation initiatives.
  • Outcome: Streamlined business processes, improved data visibility, and enhanced collaboration across the organization.
• Technology Evaluation: Evaluate new and emerging technologies, frameworks, and tools to assess their suitability for adoption within the organization. Create design patterns and reference implementations to validate technology choices and make recommendations based on technical merit, cost, and strategic alignment.

Outcome: Informed technology decisions that drive innovation and competitiveness

What You’ll Bring?

• A desire to impact lives positively, and a passion for making a difference.
• A mindset driven by purpose and always measured by impact.
• Extensive experience in software architecture design and cloud platforms, with a focus on designing scalable, high-performance, and resilient systems.
• Deep understanding of software development methodologies, frameworks, and patterns, including microservices, service-oriented architecture (SOA), and event-driven architecture.
• Proficiency in evaluating and selecting appropriate technologies, platforms, and tools to support business objectives and technical requirements.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to engage effectively with stakeholders at all levels of the organization.
• Leadership abilities, including mentoring, coaching, and influencing cross-functional teams and stakeholders.
• Analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to analyze complex technical problems and develop innovative solutions.
• Knowledge of regulatory requirements, compliance standards, and industry best practices relevant to software architecture and design.
• Technologies/Tools:
• Strong knowledge of cloud platforms & services (primarily AWS), infrastructure-as-code tools, containerization technologies, monitoring & logging tools, CI/CD pipelines & cloud networking concepts.
• Knowledge of a wide range of technologies, platforms, and tools relevant to enterprise software development including programming languages, databases, cloud services, and middleware.
• Architecture modeling tools (e.g., Enterprise Architect, ArchiMate) for designing and documenting architectural blueprints.
• Collaboration platforms (e.g., Confluence, Draw.io, Miro) for sharing architectural documentation and facilitating collaboration.

********All candidates are expected to take a 2-hour codility assessment within 4 days of it being sent.

Why This Role Matters?
Our Behavioral Health transformation initiative represents a significant investment in California’s future, and your work will directly contribute to improving lives and advancing public health. Here, you’ll find an environment that values innovation, growth, and the chance to do good work that feels good.
You will be pivotal in advancing the state’s technology capabilities, using approaches and tools comparable to those in top-tier private sector organizations.

Perks and Benefits

• Competitive compensation and benefits
• Opportunities for professional development and growth
• A culture that values flexibility, diversity, and the power of mission-driven work
• Work-life balance and varying degrees of autonomy in your work and environment

Apply Now
We want to hear if you can use your skills to create positive, scalable change! Join us in transforming healthcare services and making a meaningful impact on California’s communities.

Speridian is an Equal Opportunity Employer
Candidates must be based in the US for consideration