Platform Engineer Jobs in Palo Alto, CA
Platform Engineer jobs in Palo Alto are concentrated along University Avenue, the Stanford Research Park corridor, and the downtown core, with strong demand from enterprise software, semiconductor, and AI infrastructure companies. Employers hiring right now include GEICO, Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies, and SpaceXAI. Scan the live roles below and apply to whichever ones fit.
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Showing 5 of 579+ Platform Engineer jobs
Why Join GEICO?
At GEICO, we offer a rewarding career where your ambitions are met with endless possibilities.
Every day we honor our iconic brand by offering quality coverage to millions of customers and being there when they need us most. We thrive on relentless innovation to exceed our customers' expectations while making a real impact on local communities nationwide.
Founded in 1936, GEICO is a member of the Berkshire Hathaway family of companies and one of the largest auto insurers in the United States. When you join our company, we want you to feel valued, supported, and proud to work here. That's why we offer the GEICO Pledge: Great Company, Great Culture, Great Rewards, and Great Careers.
Distinguished Engineer – Private Cloud Platform Engineering
Position Summary
GEICO is seeking a transformational Distinguished Engineer to lead the technical vision, architecture, and evolution of our next-generation private cloud platform. This role will be responsible for driving the strategy, design, and implementation of a highly scalable, secure, and operationally efficient cloud ecosystem built on OpenStack, Kubernetes, Ceph, and Software Defined Networking technologies.
As one of GEICO's most senior technical leaders, you will define the future-state architecture for our multi-region private cloud, influence technology decisions across Infrastructure, Security, Platform Engineering, and Developer Experience organizations, and help accelerate GEICO's modernization journey. You will partner with engineering leaders, architects, and executives to build cloud capabilities that rival public cloud providers while leveraging open-source technologies and commodity hardware to optimize cost, resilience, and scalability.
This role requires deep expertise in cloud infrastructure, distributed systems, networking, storage architecture, and platform engineering along with the ability to influence across organizational boundaries and mentor senior engineering talent.
What You Will Do
Technical Strategy & Architecture
Define and own the long-term technical roadmap for GEICO's Private Cloud Platform.
Establish architectural standards for OpenStack, Kubernetes, Ceph, SDN, identity integration, observability, and automation platforms.
Lead design reviews across multiple organizations and drive architectural consistency throughout the infrastructure ecosystem.
Evaluate emerging technologies and recommend strategic investments that improve platform capabilities, operational excellence, and cost efficiency.
Private Cloud Platform Leadership
Architect and evolve a large-scale OpenStack-based Infrastructure-as-a-Service platform.
Define multi-region designs supporting virtual machines, bare metal services, storage, networking, and container platforms.
Drive modernization initiatives including platform resiliency, disaster recovery, multi-datacenter expansion, and workload migration from legacy virtualization platforms.
Partner with security teams to implement Zero Trust networking, workload identity, encryption, and compliance controls.
Software Defined Networking
Define software-defined networking architectures spanning datacenter and hybrid cloud environments.
Drive innovations in network virtualization, overlay technologies, routing automation, load balancing, firewall integration, and network observability.
Partner closely with networking teams to design scalable east-west and north-south traffic architectures.
Software Defined Storage
Provide technical leadership for large-scale Ceph deployments supporting block, object, and cloud-native storage services.
Design highly available storage architectures for OpenStack, Kubernetes, and application platforms.
Drive capacity planning, performance optimization, data durability, disaster recovery, and operational excellence initiatives.
Engineering Leadership
Mentor Senior Staff, Principal, and Staff Engineers.
Lead critical incident reviews, architecture reviews, and technical decision-making forums.
Build alignment across infrastructure, security, platform, and application engineering organizations.
Serve as a trusted advisor to executive leadership for private cloud strategy and investment decisions.
Required Qualifications
Experience
15+ years of software, infrastructure, cloud, or platform engineering experience.
5+ years operating at Principal, Senior Staff, Distinguished Engineer, or equivalent technical leadership level.
Proven track record designing and operating large-scale cloud platforms supporting thousands of workloads.
Technical Expertise
Kubernetes
Deep expertise in Kubernetes architecture, operations, networking, storage, security, and ecosystem tooling.
Experience with platform engineering and internal developer platforms.
OpenStack
Extensive experience with OpenStack services including:
Nova
Neutron
Cinder
Glance
Keystone
Ironic
Placement
Experience designing and operating production OpenStack environments at scale.
Ceph
Expert knowledge of Ceph architecture and operations.
Experience with:
RBD
RGW
OSD tuning
Performance optimization
Multi-site deployments
Capacity and durability planning
Software Defined Networking
Deep understanding of SDN principles and architectures.
Experience with technologies such as:
EVPN/VXLAN
BGP
Overlay networking
SmartNIC technologies
Network virtualization
Cloud networking
Service mesh architectures
Automation & Software Engineering
Strong coding skills in one or more of:
Go
Python
Rust
Java
Expertise with Infrastructure-as-Code and automation frameworks.
Experience building highly reliable distributed systems.
Preferred Qualifications
Experience building private cloud environments that compete with hyperscale cloud capabilities.
Experience migrating workloads from VMware or other legacy virtualization platforms.
Familiarity with AI/ML infrastructure platforms, GPU orchestration, and high-performance computing environments.
Experience operating infrastructure at multi-petabyte scale.
Experience with platform observability and SRE practices.
Strong understanding of cybersecurity, compliance, and zero-trust architecture.
What Success Looks Like
Within the first 12 months, this leader will:
Improve developer experience through self-service infrastructure and platform capabilities.
Accelerate migration from legacy virtualization platforms to modern open-source alternatives.
Increase platform reliability, scalability, and operational efficiency across GEICO datacenters.
Establish engineering standards and architectural patterns adopted across multiple infrastructure organizations.
Influence technology direction well beyond their immediate team through technical leadership, mentorship, and innovation.
Why This Role Matters
This Distinguished Engineer will play a critical role in shaping GEICO's future infrastructure platform—building a secure, scalable, software-defined private cloud capable of supporting the company's next decade of growth while improving agility, resiliency, and cost efficiency.
#LI-RP2
Annual Salary
The above annual salary range is a general guideline. Multiple factors are taken into consideration to arrive at the final hourly rate/ annual salary to be offered to the selected candidate. Factors include, but are not limited to, the scope and responsibilities of the role, the selected candidate’s work experience, education and training, the work location as well as market and business considerations.
GEICO will consider sponsoring a new qualified applicant for employment authorization for this position.
The GEICO Pledge:
Great Company: Protecting customers through life’s twists and turns with innovation and integrity.
Great Careers: Personalized development programs, mentorship, and certification assistance.
Great Culture: Inclusive and collaborative culture rooted in shared success.
Great Rewards: Competitive pay, benefits, and flexibility to support your well-being and future.
The equal employment opportunity policy of the GEICO Companies provides for a fair and equal employment opportunity for all associates and job applicants regardless of race, color, religious creed, national origin, ancestry, age, gender, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, familial status, disability or genetic information, in compliance with applicable federal, state and local law. GEICO hires and promotes individuals solely on the basis of their qualifications for the job to be filled.
GEICO reasonably accommodates qualified individuals with disabilities to enable them to receive equal employment opportunity and/or perform the essential functions of the job, unless the accommodation would impose an undue hardship to the Company. This applies to all applicants and associates. GEICO also provides a work environment in which each associate is able to be productive and work to the best of their ability. We do not condone or tolerate an atmosphere of intimidation or harassment. We expect and require the cooperation of all associates in maintaining an atmosphere free from discrimination and harassment with mutual respect by and for all associates and applicants.
Why Join GEICO?
At GEICO, we offer a rewarding career where your ambitions are met with endless possibilities.
Every day we honor our iconic brand by offering quality coverage to millions of customers and being there when they need us most. We thrive on relentless innovation to exceed our customers' expectations while making a real impact on local communities nationwide.
Founded in 1936, GEICO is a member of the Berkshire Hathaway family of companies and one of the largest auto insurers in the United States. When you join our company, we want you to feel valued, supported, and proud to work here. That's why we offer the GEICO Pledge: Great Company, Great Culture, Great Rewards, and Great Careers.
Distinguished Engineer – Private Cloud Platform Engineering
Position Summary
GEICO is seeking a transformational Distinguished Engineer to lead the technical vision, architecture, and evolution of our next-generation private cloud platform. This role will be responsible for driving the strategy, design, and implementation of a highly scalable, secure, and operationally efficient cloud ecosystem built on OpenStack, Kubernetes, Ceph, and Software Defined Networking technologies.
As one of GEICO's most senior technical leaders, you will define the future-state architecture for our multi-region private cloud, influence technology decisions across Infrastructure, Security, Platform Engineering, and Developer Experience organizations, and help accelerate GEICO's modernization journey. You will partner with engineering leaders, architects, and executives to build cloud capabilities that rival public cloud providers while leveraging open-source technologies and commodity hardware to optimize cost, resilience, and scalability.
This role requires deep expertise in cloud infrastructure, distributed systems, networking, storage architecture, and platform engineering along with the ability to influence across organizational boundaries and mentor senior engineering talent.
What You Will Do
Technical Strategy & Architecture
Define and own the long-term technical roadmap for GEICO's Private Cloud Platform.
Establish architectural standards for OpenStack, Kubernetes, Ceph, SDN, identity integration, observability, and automation platforms.
Lead design reviews across multiple organizations and drive architectural consistency throughout the infrastructure ecosystem.
Evaluate emerging technologies and recommend strategic investments that improve platform capabilities, operational excellence, and cost efficiency.
Private Cloud Platform Leadership
Architect and evolve a large-scale OpenStack-based Infrastructure-as-a-Service platform.
Define multi-region designs supporting virtual machines, bare metal services, storage, networking, and container platforms.
Drive modernization initiatives including platform resiliency, disaster recovery, multi-datacenter expansion, and workload migration from legacy virtualization platforms.
Partner with security teams to implement Zero Trust networking, workload identity, encryption, and compliance controls.
Software Defined Networking
Define software-defined networking architectures spanning datacenter and hybrid cloud environments.
Drive innovations in network virtualization, overlay technologies, routing automation, load balancing, firewall integration, and network observability.
Partner closely with networking teams to design scalable east-west and north-south traffic architectures.
Software Defined Storage
Provide technical leadership for large-scale Ceph deployments supporting block, object, and cloud-native storage services.
Design highly available storage architectures for OpenStack, Kubernetes, and application platforms.
Drive capacity planning, performance optimization, data durability, disaster recovery, and operational excellence initiatives.
Engineering Leadership
Mentor Senior Staff, Principal, and Staff Engineers.
Lead critical incident reviews, architecture reviews, and technical decision-making forums.
Build alignment across infrastructure, security, platform, and application engineering organizations.
Serve as a trusted advisor to executive leadership for private cloud strategy and investment decisions.
Required Qualifications
Experience
15+ years of software, infrastructure, cloud, or platform engineering experience.
5+ years operating at Principal, Senior Staff, Distinguished Engineer, or equivalent technical leadership level.
Proven track record designing and operating large-scale cloud platforms supporting thousands of workloads.
Technical Expertise
Kubernetes
Deep expertise in Kubernetes architecture, operations, networking, storage, security, and ecosystem tooling.
Experience with platform engineering and internal developer platforms.
OpenStack
Extensive experience with OpenStack services including:
Nova
Neutron
Cinder
Glance
Keystone
Ironic
Placement
Experience designing and operating production OpenStack environments at scale.
Ceph
Expert knowledge of Ceph architecture and operations.
Experience with:
RBD
RGW
OSD tuning
Performance optimization
Multi-site deployments
Capacity and durability planning
Software Defined Networking
Deep understanding of SDN principles and architectures.
Experience with technologies such as:
EVPN/VXLAN
BGP
Overlay networking
SmartNIC technologies
Network virtualization
Cloud networking
Service mesh architectures
Automation & Software Engineering
Strong coding skills in one or more of:
Go
Python
Rust
Java
Expertise with Infrastructure-as-Code and automation frameworks.
Experience building highly reliable distributed systems.
Preferred Qualifications
Experience building private cloud environments that compete with hyperscale cloud capabilities.
Experience migrating workloads from VMware or other legacy virtualization platforms.
Familiarity with AI/ML infrastructure platforms, GPU orchestration, and high-performance computing environments.
Experience operating infrastructure at multi-petabyte scale.
Experience with platform observability and SRE practices.
Strong understanding of cybersecurity, compliance, and zero-trust architecture.
What Success Looks Like
Within the first 12 months, this leader will:
Improve developer experience through self-service infrastructure and platform capabilities.
Accelerate migration from legacy virtualization platforms to modern open-source alternatives.
Increase platform reliability, scalability, and operational efficiency across GEICO datacenters.
Establish engineering standards and architectural patterns adopted across multiple infrastructure organizations.
Influence technology direction well beyond their immediate team through technical leadership, mentorship, and innovation.
Why This Role Matters
This Distinguished Engineer will play a critical role in shaping GEICO's future infrastructure platform—building a secure, scalable, software-defined private cloud capable of supporting the company's next decade of growth while improving agility, resiliency, and cost efficiency.
#LI-RP2
Annual Salary
The above annual salary range is a general guideline. Multiple factors are taken into consideration to arrive at the final hourly rate/ annual salary to be offered to the selected candidate. Factors include, but are not limited to, the scope and responsibilities of the role, the selected candidate’s work experience, education and training, the work location as well as market and business considerations.
GEICO will consider sponsoring a new qualified applicant for employment authorization for this position.
The GEICO Pledge:
Great Company: Protecting customers through life’s twists and turns with innovation and integrity.
Great Careers: Personalized development programs, mentorship, and certification assistance.
Great Culture: Inclusive and collaborative culture rooted in shared success.
Great Rewards: Competitive pay, benefits, and flexibility to support your well-being and future.
The equal employment opportunity policy of the GEICO Companies provides for a fair and equal employment opportunity for all associates and job applicants regardless of race, color, religious creed, national origin, ancestry, age, gender, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, familial status, disability or genetic information, in compliance with applicable federal, state and local law. GEICO hires and promotes individuals solely on the basis of their qualifications for the job to be filled.
GEICO reasonably accommodates qualified individuals with disabilities to enable them to receive equal employment opportunity and/or perform the essential functions of the job, unless the accommodation would impose an undue hardship to the Company. This applies to all applicants and associates. GEICO also provides a work environment in which each associate is able to be productive and work to the best of their ability. We do not condone or tolerate an atmosphere of intimidation or harassment. We expect and require the cooperation of all associates in maintaining an atmosphere free from discrimination and harassment with mutual respect by and for all associates and applicants.
See All 579+ Platform Engineer Jobs in Palo Alto
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Find Platform Engineer JobsPlatform Engineer Job Market in Palo Alto
Who's Hiring
- GEICO122
- Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies61
- SpaceXAI46
- JPMorganChase46
- Tesla30
Top Industries Hiring
- Technology & Software107
- Insurance91
- Science & Research30
- Automotive15
- Manufacturing15
Platform Engineer Jobs in Palo Alto: Frequently Asked Questions
How do I get a platform engineer job in Palo Alto?
Focus your search on the Stanford Research Park corridor and downtown Palo Alto, where enterprise software, AI infrastructure, and semiconductor firms concentrate their engineering teams. Hands-on experience with Kubernetes, Terraform, or cloud-native tooling gives you a clear edge here. Employers in this market move quickly, so having a portfolio of deployed infrastructure projects and strong system design fundamentals puts you ahead of most applicants.
Which companies hire platform engineers in Palo Alto?
Palo Alto platform engineer roles are posted by GEICO, Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies, and SpaceXAI and others right now, based on current listings on Migrate Mate as of August 2026. The local market skews toward mature tech companies and well-funded growth-stage startups, many tied to Stanford's research ecosystem or backed by Sand Hill Road venture capital.
Are there remote platform engineer jobs in Palo Alto?
Yes, though availability depends on the role, since positions requiring hands-on data center or on-site infrastructure work tend to be in-person while cloud and automation-focused roles are often remote-eligible. About 71% of platform engineer openings tied to Palo Alto are remote or hybrid as of August 2026, reflecting how many local employers have adopted flexible arrangements. Cloud platform and SRE-adjacent roles are the most consistently remote-eligible in this market.
How can I get a platform engineer job in Palo Alto with little or no experience?
The most realistic entry path in Palo Alto is through a junior site reliability engineer or infrastructure associate role at one of the many growth-stage startups in the area, where smaller teams give early-career engineers broader exposure faster. Building public projects on GitHub using tools common in the local stack, such as Kubernetes or Terraform, and pursuing cloud certifications helps compensate for limited professional history. Some Palo Alto firms also run structured rotational programs that move engineers from support or DevOps roles into platform teams.
Which industries hire the most platform engineers in Palo Alto?
Palo Alto platform engineer roles concentrate in Technology & Software, Insurance, and Science & Research, based on current listings on Migrate Mate as of August 2026. The city's proximity to Stanford and its deep roots in enterprise software and semiconductor development have made those sectors the primary drivers of platform engineering demand locally.
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