Principal Engineer

Principal Developer – Platform Engineering

Self Employed position- 1 year initial contract plus extensions

Ideal start date: March 2026

Hybrid Brussels

Role Overview

We are seeking a Principal Developer to lead the design, development, and operation of a mission-critical enterprise platform.

This platform integrates OpenShift , Azure IaaS , HashiCorp Vault , Jenkins , Keycloak , Okta , ELK , MongoDB , PostgreSQL , Elasticsearch , MinIO , Solace , Confluent Kafka , custom Kubernetes operators , NGINX reverse proxies , and an API Gateway , providing secure and resilient digital services for air navigation, network management, and operational data exchange.

The role demands a hands-on technical leader capable of bridging software engineering , infrastructure automation , and enterprise-grade reliability and security in alignment with aviation safety and data protection standards.

Key Responsibilities:

Platform Design & Engineering

• Architect, implement, and continuously evolve a container-based platform on OpenShift and Azure IaaS to support the digital services portfolio.
• Develop and maintain custom Kubernetes operators for lifecycle automation of critical services (databases, observability stacks, messaging, and APIs).
• Design and implement secure multi-tenant architectures , leveraging Vault , Keycloak , and Okta for identity, secrets, and policy enforcement.
• Lead the development of CI/CD automation pipelines with Jenkins , ensuring consistent, traceable, and auditable software delivery.
• Collaborate with product teams to integrate data services (PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Elasticsearch, MinIO) into the platform ecosystem.

Platform Operations & Resilience

• Oversee high availability and disaster recovery strategies across distributed Azure and OpenShift environments.
• Implement observability frameworks (ELK, Prometheus, Grafana) to ensure proactive monitoring and compliance with defined SLOs/SLIs.
• Champion Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) practices and continuous improvement of operational processes.
• Drive infrastructure as code (IaC) and configuration as code (CaC) adoption using Terraform and Ansible , ensuring reproducibility and auditability.

Security, Compliance & Integration

• Integrate and manage secure communication layers , including NGINX reverse proxies , API gateways , and TLS certificate management .
• Manage event-driven integration patterns using Solace PubSub+ and Confluent Kafka , supporting real-time aviation data exchange.
• Collaborate with cybersecurity and compliance teams to implement zero-trust networking and policy-as-code controls.

Leadership & Collaboration

• Act as technical authority and mentor for platform engineers and developers, guiding architecture, design, and operational excellence.
• Spend 15-20% of time to provide support to the product developers who are the customers of the platform.
• Provide architectural reviews and governance for platform components and integrations.
• Liaise with internal stakeholders, partner organizations, and external technology providers to ensure platform evolution aligns with the strategic digital objectives .

Required Skills & Experience

Technical Expertise

• 10+ years of professional experience in software/platform engineering , including 3+ in a principal or lead developer capacity.
• Proven experience with OpenShift/Kubernetes (operator SDKs, Helm, ArgoCD, cluster management, GO programming language).
• Deep understanding of Azure IaaS , virtual networking, and hybrid cloud architectures.
• Expert in CI/CD automation (Jenkins, GitOps, or ArgoCD) .
• Advanced proficiency in Vault , Keycloak , and Okta for security and identity federation.
• Strong experience with relational and NoSQL databases (PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Elasticsearch) and object storage (MinIO) .
• Experience with event streaming platforms (Solace, Confluent Kafka).
• Knowledge of NGINX and API Gateway technologies for secure service exposure.
• Solid background in Terraform , Ansible , and containerized application delivery.
• Understanding of observability stacks (ELK, Prometheus, Grafana) and log/metric correlation techniques.

Leadership & Domain Knowledge

• Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional teams and set architectural direction.
• Strong communication skills with the ability to work in a multi-national, safety-critical organization .
• Deep understanding of cybersecurity, compliance, and operational resilience in regulated domains.

Preferred Qualifications

• Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) or Application Developer (CKAD).
• HashiCorp Certified: Vault Associate.
• Azure Solutions Architect Expert or Azure DevOps Engineer certification.
• Experience with service meshes (Istio, Linkerd) and OpenTelemetry for advanced observability.