Lead Engineer, Full Stack Platform Engineer
Location: New York, New York
Country: United States
Category: Software Development
Workplace Location: Remote
Employment Type: Contract
Posted Date: July 27, 2026
Job ID: 650142
Job Description
Lead Platform Engineer
Remote
12 months Contract to Hire
$80-88 per hour W2 (Ideally 173k Conversion)
In this role, you will:
End-to-End Solution Ownership & Product Engineering (40%)
- Own delivery of complex, end-to-end engineering solutions--from data generation and ingestion through analytics, APIs, and user-facing experiences
- Develop a deep understanding of business workflows, especially high-scale exam and operational systems
- Partner with product, architecture, and engineering teams to shape requirements, define scope, and provide accurate level-of-effort estimates
- Drive sprint planning, technical design discussions, and code/design reviews with a focus on speed, quality, and scalability
Architecture, Data Engineering & Implementation (40%)
- Lead design and implementation of scalable, high-performance, cloud-native data and application platforms
- Architect data generation systems (synthetic, event-based, telemetry-driven) to support testing, analytics, and AI model development
- Engineer high-performance systems, focusing on latency, throughput, resiliency, and cost efficiency
- Implement robust observability, telemetry, and performance monitoring across all layers
- Establish and enforce standards for automation, reliability, and performance engineering
- Integrate AI-driven components (prediction, anomaly detection, intelligent insights) into production systems
Agentic AI & AI-Driven Development (20%)
- Design and build agentic AI systems that can autonomously reason, plan, and execute tasks across engineering workflows
- Leverage LLMs and orchestration frameworks to enable intelligent automation in data pipelines, testing, and operations
- Incorporate AI-assisted development practices, including code generation, code review augmentation, and developer productivity tooling
- Evaluate and implement AI-native architectures, including tool-using agents, multi-agent systems
- Ensure responsible, secure, and scalable deployment of AI capabilities in production environments
Technical Leadership & Engineering Excellence
- Act as a senior technical leader driving architectural decisions and solving complex system challenges
- Mentor engineers across backend, data, performance, and AI domains
- Champion engineering best practices in performance optimization, scalability, security, and reliability
- Clearly communicate technical strategy, tradeoffs, and decisions to stakeholders
Performance Engineering & Operational Readiness
- Lead performance engineering efforts, including load testing, capacity planning, and system tuning
- Build frameworks for data-driven performance benchmarking and optimization
- Ensure systems meet strict SLAs for availability, latency, and scalability
- Proactively identify risks and ensure readiness for high-stakes operational events
About You
You have:
- 7+ years of experience building and operating scalable, distributed, cloud-native systems, including data platforms and APIs
- Strong experience with end-to-end system design, from data generation to front-end delivery
- Proven expertise in performance engineering, including profiling, load testing, and system optimization
- Hands-on experience with backend technologies such as Node.js (TypeScript preferred) and Python, building APIs and event-driven systems
- Strong experience designing and operating data pipelines and data platforms (real-time and batch)
- Experience building modern front-end applications (React/TypeScript) for data-intensive interfaces
- Deep knowledge of AWS services (Lambda, S3, Step Functions, SNS/SQS, Redshift, Athena, DynamoDB, etc.)
- Experience with Infrastructure as Code (CDK, Terraform, CloudFormation)
- Strong understanding of event-driven architectures, streaming, and telemetry systems
- Experience implementing observability and monitoring solutions (e.g., Grafana or similar)
- Experience with AI/ML systems in production, including model integration and operationalization
AI & Modern Engineering Capabilities
- Experience working with LLMs, agent frameworks, or AI orchestration tools
- Familiarity with agentic workflows, autonomous system
- Hands-on experience with AI-assisted coding tools (e.g., GitHub Copilot, ChatGPT, or similar) and integrating them into development workflows
- Understanding of RAG architectures, prompt engineering, and tool-augmented AI systems
Nice to Have
- Experience in high-scale, mission-critical environments with strict reliability requirements
- Familiarity with cell-based or multi-tenant architectures
- Experience designing systems for data isolation, security, and performance segmentation
- Exposure to synthetic data generation or simulation systems
- Experience with multi-agent AI systems or advanced automation pipelines
- Experience with MCP servers and agents skills
What We're Looking For
- Strong ownership mindset with the ability to drive end-to-end delivery
- Deep focus on performance, scalability, and reliability
- Curiosity and hands-on engagement with emerging AI technologies
- Ability to operate effectively in a fast-moving, contract-based environment
- Clear communication and strong collaboration across technical and non-technical stakeholders
EEO Statement
The staffing industry has seen an increase in people falsely representing themselves as recruiters to gather personal information from job seekers. For your safety, do not provide sensitive data to anyone you have not spoken with thoroughly, never provide banking information during the application process, and always double check the email address of the Recruiter to ensure it’s from an official Planet domain (@theplanetgroup.com or @launchcg.com) - and not a domain with an alternative extension like .net, .org, or .jobs.
The Planet Group and our companies are equal opportunity employers. It is our practice not to discriminate against any employee or applicant based on any criteria, condition or basis protected by laws or regulations in the locations where we do business. All qualified applicants are encouraged to apply. We celebrate diversity and are committed to providing an environment of mutual respect. We believe that diversity, equity, and inclusion enable us to better meet our mission and values while serving our clients across the globe. If you have a disability or handicap and would like us to accommodate you in any reasonable way, please inform your recruiter, or contact us, so that we can discuss the appropriate alternatives available.
Apply Now
Apply Via
Stay Up To Date With The Latest Jobs.
Similar Jobs
About The Planet Group
The Planet Group is a global professional services firm delivering strategic staffing and advisory solutions. We operate at the intersection of talent and transformation – connecting the right people with the right opportunities in the areas of technology, engineering, accounting & finance, digital marketing, and manufacturing.
As one of the largest staffing companies in the US, we operate with a global reach and a performance-first mindset. We partner with clients to move fast, stay agile, and drive measurable results – building high-impact teams that fuel transformation and growth.
