Senior Bazel Platform Engineer

Plan A Technologies is seeking a Senior Bazel Platform Engineer to lead a long-term client engagement. This role involves operating Bazel as a production-grade build and CI platform, optimizing builds for speed and scalability, and improving developer experience. The engineer will own problem diagnosis, solution design, execution, and stabilization, working independently with client platform and engineering leads. Key responsibilities include managing Bazel Remote Execution/Caching, improving build performance, optimizing language-specific builds (Go, Python, JVM/Java), stabilizing Thrift and code generation, enhancing developer experience, and integrating observability metrics.

Must Have

• Lead long-term client engagement focused on operating Bazel as a production-grade build and CI platform.
• Run Bazel in large, real-world monorepos.
• Solved CI scalability problems caused by deep dependency graphs.
• Stabilized remote execution and caching.
• Improved developer experience under rapid team growth.
• Experience operating in a self-sufficient, agency-led model.
• At least 5+ years as a Senior-level engineer with hands-on production Bazel experience.
• 8+ years of software or platform engineering experience.
• Strong understanding of Bazel Remote Execution & Caching, Hermetic toolchains, Dependency graph design, Incremental and parallel builds.
• Experience with Go, Python, and JVM build ecosystems.
• Proven ability to stabilize flaky CI and improve build performance at scale.
• Comfortable working independently and owning outcomes.
• Experience working in fast-growing or high-scale engineering organizations.
• Excellent verbal and written English communication skills.

Good to Have

• Experience migrating from Maven/Gradle or other legacy build systems to Bazel.
• Experience with BazelMod, Gazelle, and generated-code workflows.
• Platform engineering or developer productivity background.

Perks & Benefits

• Generous vacation schedule
• Brand New Laptop
• Other goodies
• Great colleagues and an upbeat work environment

JOB OVERVIEW

This role is ideal for an engineer who has:

• Run Bazel in large, real-world monorepos
• Solved CI scalability problems caused by deep dependency graphs
• Stabilized remote execution and caching
• Improved developer experience under rapid team growth

You will be embedded with a client, operating independently and owning results. The ideal candidate should have experience in operating in a self-sufficient, agency-led model, owning problem diagnosis, solution design, execution, and stabilization end to end. Work closely with client platform and engineering leads while remaining independent from day-to-day direction. Deliver durable systems, guardrails, and documentation built to last for years (not months) and maintain overlap with US Pacific Time working hours.

Please note: you must have at least 5+ years as a Senior-level engineer with hands-on production Bazel experience to be considered for this role.

JOB RESPONSIBILITY

• Optimize and tune Bazel builds for speed, reliability, and scalability

Own Bazel as a Platform

• Design, operate, and stabilize Bazel Remote Execution and Remote Caching (RBE/RBC).
• Diagnose and fix remote execution flakiness, race conditions, and non-deterministic actions.
• Ensure build and CI systems scale predictably as engineering teams grow.
• Improve Build Performance & Dependency Graph Health.
• Analyze and remediate deep dependency trees and legacy “blob targets”.
• Incrementally decompose monolithic targets using safe, low-risk approaches.
• Reduce rebuild blast radius so small changes don’t trigger repo-wide rebuilds.
• Establish durable standards for target granularity, layering, and visibility.

Language-Specific Build Optimization

• Go: Maintain high cache hit rates and fast incremental builds; prevent new build anti-patterns as the codebase grows.
• Python: Eliminate reliance on system-installed libraries; implement hermetic toolchains and pinned third-party dependencies.
• JVM / Java: Optimize rulesjvmexternal usage; reduce transitive dependency sprawl and oversized classpaths.

Thrift & Code Generation

• Stabilize and optimize Thrift-based code generation.
• Ensure generated code is deterministic, cacheable, and isolated in the build graph.
• Prevent codegen from becoming a rebuild amplifier.

Developer Experience & BUILD Hygiene

• Reduce manual BUILD file maintenance through macros, templates, and automation.
• Define Golden Path build patterns developers can follow without Bazel expertise.
• Improve IDE-based development so local builds match CI behavior.
• Prevent regression into poor build hygiene as teams and repositories grow.

Observability & Metrics

• Integrate Bazel Build Event Protocol (BEP) into dashboards.
• Track and act on: cache hit rates by language, slowest targets/actions, rebuild fan-out per PR, CI critical path time and Use metrics to prioritize work and demonstrate measurable improvements.

EXPERIENCE

• BS in Computer Science, Software Engineering or equivalent.
• 8+ years of software or platform engineering experience.
• Senior-level engineer with hands-on production Bazel experience.
• Experience operating Bazel in large monorepos.
• Strong understanding of: Bazel Remote Execution & Caching, Hermetic toolchains, Dependency graph design, and Incremental and parallel builds.
• Experience with Go, Python, and JVM build ecosystems.
• Proven ability to stabilize flaky CI and improve build performance at scale.
• Comfortable working independently and owning outcomes.
• Experience working in fast-growing or high-scale engineering organizations.
• Excellent verbal and written English communication skills.
• Initiative and drive to do great things.

Nice to Have

• Experience migrating from Maven/Gradle or other legacy build systems to Bazel.
• Experience with BazelMod, Gazelle, and generated-code workflows.
• Platform engineering or developer productivity background.

ABOUT THE COMPANY/BENEFITS

is an American software development and technology advisory firm that brings top-tier engineering talent to clients around the world. Our software engineers tackle custom product development projects, staff augmentation, major integrations and upgrades, and much more. The team is far more hands-on than the giant outsourcing shops, but still big enough to handle major enterprise clients.

Read more about us here: www.PlanAtechnologies.com .

Great colleagues and an upbeat work environment: You'll join an excellent team of supportive engineers and project managers who work hard but don't ever compete with each other.

Benefits: You’ll get a generous vacation schedule, Brand New Laptop, and other goodies.

If this sounds like you, we'd love to hear from you!