Sr. Platform Engineering Consultant

Who is Trace3? Trace3 is a leading Transformative IT Authority, providing unique technology solutions and consulting services to our clients. Equipped with elite engineering and dynamic innovation, we empower IT executives and their organizations to achieve competitive advantage through a process of Integrate, Automate, Innovate. Our culture at Trace3 embodies the spirit of a startup with the advantage of a scalable business. Employees can grow their career and have fun while doing it! Trace3 is headquartered in Irvine, California. We employ more than 1,200 people all over the United States. Our major field office locations include Denver, Indianapolis, Grand Rapids, Lexington, Los Angeles, Louisville, Texas, San Francisco.   Ready to discover the possibilities that live in technology?   Come Join Us! Street-Smart - Thriving in Dynamic Times We are flexible and resilient in a fast-changing environment. We continuously innovate and drive constructive change while keeping a focus on the “big picture.” We exercise sound business judgment in making high-quality decisions in a timely and cost-effective manner. We are highly creative and can dig deep within ourselves to find positive solutions to different problems. Juice - The “Stuff” it takes to be a Needle Mover We get things done and drive results. We lead without a title, empowering others through a can-do attitude. We look forward to the goal, mentally mapping out every checkpoint on the pathway to success, and visualizing what the final destination looks and feels like. Teamwork - Humble, Hungry and Smart We are humble individuals who understand how our job impacts the company's mission. We treat others with respect, admit mistakes, give credit where it’s due and demonstrate transparency. We “bring the weather” by exhibiting positive leadership and solution-focused thinking. We hug people in their trials, struggles, and failures – not just their success. We appreciate the individuality of the people around us.  About the role: This Senior Platform Engineering Consultant role blends senior-level consulting, technical advisory, and delivery leadership together.  This role will leverage executive consulting skills and technical expertise to accelerate strategic initiatives and deliver impactful solutions. The Senior Platform Engineering Consultant serves as a trusted advisor to client executives and engineering leaders, shapes platform engineering and agentic AI strategies and roadmaps, leads delivery of complex initiatives, and supports pre-sales activities that grow the platform engineering practice. They work shoulder-to-shoulder with Trace3 architects, engineers, and account teams to ensure engagements deliver business value and create durable client relationships.  What You'll do: Client Advisory and Business Development  Serve as the lead platform engineering consultant on assigned strategic accounts; act as a trusted advisor to CIOs, CTOs, VPs of Engineering, and platform leaders on cloud-native, DevOps, and developer-experience strategy.  Partner with Sales, Account Management, and Trace3 architects to shape pursuits, develop proposals, statements of work (SOWs), and level-of-effort (LOE) estimates, and close opportunities; consistently contribute to revenue growth and portfolio margin targets.  Drive business development in partnership with Sales and account teams; serve as a leader for go-to-market (GTM) strategy and execution for platform engineering pursuits.  Identify high-priority business use cases and translate them into actionable platform engineering roadmaps, investment cases, and target operating models.  Influence executive stakeholders through compelling presentations, workshops, and proof-of-concept demonstrations.  Identify and pursue opportunities to expand engagements into adjacent Trace3 services (cloud, application development, data/AI, security, managed services).  Contribute to the ongoing development and maturation of Trace3's Digital Consulting Platform Engineering offerings, frameworks, and go-to-market (GTM) collateral.    Platform Engineering Strategy and Architecture  Develop enterprise platform engineering strategies and operating models aligned to client business outcomes; guide “build vs buy” decisions and align solution, integration, and developer-experience architectures with non-functional requirements.  Advise clients on agentic AI solutions (AI Native Development Experience with agentic solutions including agentic platforms, orchestrating agents and sub-agents to run projects, AI in SRE/RCA/observability, AI in CI/CD, and other agentic solutions within the cloud native solutions space, etc), Internal Developer Platforms (IDPs), Kubernetes platforms, CI/CD modernization, DevSecOps, observability, and platform automation.  Design platform reference architectures, golden paths, and paved-road patterns that improve developer productivity, reliability, and security posture.  Provide thought leadership on emerging trends in cloud-native technologies, platform engineering, automation, and observability; bring point-of-view to clients on the partner and tooling ecosystem.  Lead organizational change management, adoption planning, and platform team operating-model design to drive measurable value realization.    Program and Delivery Leadership  Lead complex, cross-functional platform engineering programs covering platform build-out, migration, modernization, and operational maturity.  Set delivery methodology, governance, success criteria, and quality gates; orchestrate Trace3 architects, engineers, product owners, and client resources across multiple workstreams.  Own scope, schedule, budget, RAID, dependencies, and decision facilitation; produce executive dashboards and transparent status reporting on benefits, risks, and spend.  Collaborate closely with client sponsors and engineering leadership to ensure technical decisions align to enterprise objectives and constraints (including regulated env