Senior Platform Engineer (IT Services)

About Charles River Associates Charles River Associates (CRA) is a global consulting firm specializing in litigation, regulatory, financial, and management consulting. We provide economic and financial analysis in litigation and regulatory proceedings and guide businesses through critical strategy and operational issues. Since 1965, clients have engaged CRA for our unique combination of functional expertise and industry knowledge, and for our objective solutions to complex problems. Headquartered in Boston, CRA has offices throughout the world. Learn more about our careers at http://www.crai.com/careers.

Charles River Associates

Experience that counts for more.

Antitrust & Competition EconomicsEnergy & EnvironmentFinancial Accounting & ValuationFinancial EconomicsFinancial MarketsForensic ServicesIPInternational ArbitrationLabor & EmploymentLife Sciences

C

crai.com

1,001-5,000 employees

Business Consulting and Services

Boston, MA

1965

Public Company

79k LinkedIn followers

Raised $650M

• The Information Technology (ITS) department at Charles River Associates is
• currently a team of more than 40 professionals dedicated to enhancing,
• maintaining, and developing the firm's technology infrastructure and security
• based in offices around the globe. The team is comprised of four functions
• Service Delivery & Telecom, Enterprise Application Solutions, Infrastructure,
• Networking and Cloud Solutions, Information Security. Primarily a Microsoft
• house, CRA is looking to maximize the performance of our on-premise systems and
• hybrid infrastructure, meaning experience with cloud technologies is essential
• for this role.
• The Senior Platform Engineer is responsible for designing, building, and
• continuously improving the firm's hybrid infrastructure platforms spanning
• on-premises datacenters and public cloud environments. This role focuses on
• platform engineering practices, automation, infrastructure-as-code, and
• operational excellence to deliver scalable, secure, and self-service
• infrastructure services.
• The engineer will partner closely with cloud, networking, security, automation,
• and application teams to create reusable platform capabilities, automate
• infrastructure lifecycle management, and enable modernization initiatives across
• the enterprise. This position plays a key role in advancing CRA's hybrid cloud
• strategy through platform standardization, governance, observability, cost
• optimization, and automation-first operational practices. Primary
• Design, build, and maintain hybrid infrastructure platforms supporting public
• cloud and on-premises environments.
• Develop reusable platform services that enable self-service provisioning and
• standardized infrastructure deployment.
• Establish platform standards, golden images, reference architectures, and
• engineering guardrails.
• Contribute to enterprise platform roadmaps and modernization initiatives.
• Develop and maintain Infrastructure-as-Code solutions using Terraform,
• Terraform Cloud, Bicep, Ansible, and automation frameworks.
• Build automation workflows for provisioning, compliance validation, lifecycle
• management, patching, backup, and disaster recovery.
• Develop reusable infrastructure modules and automation pipelines following
• DevOps and Platform Engineering principles.
• Foundation, Azure, AWS, and future cloud platforms.
• Support a “Cloud Landing Zone” architecture pattern.
• Assist with workload discovery and migration readiness activities, then
• execute migration tasks (e.g., provisioning, cutovers, validation) for
• workloads moving to multi-cloud strategy.
• Infrastructure optimization and improve day-day management of on-premises
• compute, storage, and virtualization platforms (VMware vSphere) that would
• introduce efficiencies thru automated workflows.
• Experience managing a Cloud-enabled Identity and Directory Services
• implementing and maintaining Active Directory/Azure AD integration (Entra),
• RBAC/ABAC, policy-based access control, service principals, and secrets
• management across cloud environments.
• Support a hybrid network connectivity by implementing, validating, and
• troubleshooting connectivity between on-prem and cloud environments (e.g.
• SDWAN, ExpressRoute, Direct Connect, Private Gateways) in partnership with
• Network Reliability team, InfoSec, including segmentation, routing, firewall
• rules, load balancing, and latency/bandwidth requirements for target
• workloads.
• Familiarity with cloud governance & FinOps enablement by implementation of
• governance controls (guardrails, tagging, policy enforcement), cost
• management (FinOps) reporting, and securing a hybrid environment.

Required

• Bachelor’s degree (Master’s preferred) in a relevant technology-related
• discipline;
• Azure/AWS Solutions Architect or cloud related certifications preferred,
• HashiCorp Terraform Associate or Advanced certifications desirable;
• 8+ years supporting enterprise-scale infrastructure and multi-cloud
• hyperscalers (eg. Azure, AWS, GCP);
• 5+ years working with Terraform and advanced understanding of
• Infrastructure-as-Code methodologies;
• Deep experience designing, building, and operating CI/CD pipelines and GitOps
• workflows using GitHub Actions, Jenkins, and enterprise source control
• platforms to enable automated, secure, and scalable infrastructure and
• application delivery;
• Experience building automation using ansible, bash, powershell, python
• scripting, and Rest APIs;
• Experience with cloud governance, policy management, and FinOps practices.
• Understanding of cloud networking, DNS, cloud-enabled identity services,
• security controls, and hybrid connectivity;
• Hands-on experience with Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, Application Insights,
• Grafana, Datadog, Splunk, or similar observability platforms;
• Familiarity with Internal Developer Platforms (IDP).

Preferred

• Experience with VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF), vSphere, and hybrid cloud
• architectures;
• Hands-on experience with Kubernetes, AKS, EKS, or OpenShift;
• Experience with Databricks infrastructure, AI platform hosting, or enterprise
• data platforms;
• Experience integrating AIOps, observability, or monitoring platforms.

• We offer a comprehensive total rewards program including a superior benefits
• package, wellness programming [https://www.crai.com/benefits/] to support
• physical, mental, emotional and financial well-being, and in-house
• immigration support
• CRA creates a work environment that enables our colleagues to benefit from being
• together in the office to best deliver on our promise of career growth,
• mentorship and inclusivity. At the same time, we recognize that individuals
• realize a range of benefits when working from home periodically. We currently
• expect that individuals spend at least 3 to 4 days a week working in the office
• (which may include traveling to another CRA office or to client meetings), with
• specific days determined in coordination with your practice or team.
• A good-faith estimate of the annual base salary range for this position is
• $130,000 - $150,000. Stating pay within this range may vary based on factors
• such as education level, experience, skills, geographic location, market
• conditions, and other qualifications of the successful candidate. This position
• may be eligible for additional bonus incentive compensation. CRA offers a
• comprehensive benefits package, subject to eligibility requirements, which
• include: medical, dental, and vision insurance; 401(k) retirement plan with
• employer match; life and disability insurance; paid time off (vacation, sick
• leave, holidays); paid parental leave; wellness programs and employee assistance
• resources; and commuter benefits.