Associate Platform Engineer (College Grad 2027)
Platform Engineer · Intern · Full Time
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Role
What you'll do.
Associate Platform Engineer role at Solace Health, a Series C healthcare startup transforming patient advocacy through technology. This college graduate (2027) position focuses on building resilient cloud infrastructure, troubleshooting distributed systems, and developing an internal developer platform using modern tools like Kubernetes, AWS, and GCP. You'll work alongside experienced platform engineers to learn infrastructure fundamentals, gain hands-on experience with cloud systems, and contribute to mission-critical healthcare technology in an intensive, growth-focused environment.
Responsibilities
- Internal Developer Platform Support: Provide technical support and tooling assistance to product and data engineers, ensuring smooth developer experience and efficient workflow through the internal platform. Help troubleshoot deployment issues, streamline development environments, and document best practices for infrastructure utilization.
- Systems Health Monitoring and Triage: Monitor cloud infrastructure health metrics, analyze performance signals, and triage alerts to identify issues before they impact production systems. Learn to interpret observability data and establish patterns for effective system monitoring across distributed architectures.
- Incident Response and Troubleshooting: Participate in real-time troubleshooting during system outages, work alongside senior platform engineers to diagnose root causes, and implement fixes for infrastructure failures. Develop problem-solving skills through hands-on experience with live production incidents in a supportive learning environment.
- Postmortem Analysis and Systems Architecture Review: Contribute to postmortem discussions following incidents, participate in systems analysis sessions, and engage in architectural reviews to prevent recurrence. Learn to document lessons learned and identify infrastructure improvements through structured analysis and cross-team collaboration.
- Infrastructure Development and Automation: Assist in building, deploying, and maintaining cloud infrastructure on AWS and GCP using Infrastructure-as-Code tools such as OpenTofu and container orchestration with Kubernetes. Contribute to automation initiatives that improve deployment reliability and reduce manual operational overhead.
- Linux System Administration and Command Line Operations: Develop proficiency in Linux command-line operations, system diagnostics, and troubleshooting. Learn to navigate complex systems, manage resources, and implement operational procedures across diverse infrastructure environments.
Qualifications
What we look for.
Technical
Linux and Unix Fundamentals
Solid understanding of Linux operating systems, command-line operations, and basic system administration. Ability to navigate filesystems, manage processes, and perform essential troubleshooting tasks.
Cloud Computing Basics
Foundational knowledge of cloud platforms concepts including compute instances, networking, storage services, and managed services. Familiarity with at least one major cloud provider (AWS, GCP, or Azure) is preferred.
Infrastructure Concepts
Understanding of containerization principles, basic networking concepts (DNS, IP addressing, TCP/IP), and distributed systems fundamentals. Knowledge of how applications communicate across infrastructure layers.
Problem-Solving and Debugging
Strong ability to diagnose system issues through systematic analysis, form hypotheses, and test solutions. Proficiency with debugging tools and techniques for identifying performance and reliability issues.
Version Control (Git)
Working knowledge of Git for source code management, including basic workflow operations like commits, branches, and pull requests for infrastructure-as-code collaboration.
Education
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or Related Field
Expected graduation in 2027. Degree should provide foundation in computer science, software engineering, systems design, or related discipline with exposure to systems concepts and networking.
Experience
Recent Graduate Status
Expected to graduate in 2027 with no prior professional software engineering experience required. This is an entry-level role designed specifically for new graduates eager to launch platform engineering careers.
Demonstrable Learning Initiative
Evidence of self-driven technical learning through personal projects, home labs, open-source contributions, or side projects that showcase curiosity about how systems work and willingness to explore infrastructure concepts independently.
Systems Thinking Aptitude
Previous experience diagnosing and solving technical problems, whether through coursework, personal projects, or hobby projects. Examples include building home labs, running infrastructure for campus organizations, or troubleshooting deployed applications.
Skills
Required
Troubleshooting and Diagnostics
Ability to systematically investigate system failures, gather diagnostic information, form hypotheses about root causes, and test potential solutions through methodical problem-solving approaches.
Linux Command Line Proficiency
Comfortable working in terminal environments, navigating file systems, understanding processes and permissions, and performing basic system administration tasks on Linux-based systems.
Cloud Platform Navigation
Basic familiarity with at least one major cloud provider's console, understanding of core services like compute instances and storage, and ability to learn new cloud services quickly.
Technical Curiosity and Learning Agility
Strong intrinsic motivation to understand how systems work, willingness to dive deep into unfamiliar technologies, and ability to rapidly acquire new skills through hands-on experimentation and mentorship.
Written and Verbal Communication
Clear ability to document findings, explain technical concepts to diverse audiences, and participate effectively in team discussions, postmortems, and knowledge-sharing sessions.
Preferred
Kubernetes Container Orchestration
Nice to haveExposure to Kubernetes concepts such as pods, services, deployments, and namespaces. Experience can range from course projects to personal lab experiments.
Infrastructure-as-Code Tools
Nice to haveFamiliarity with IaC frameworks like Terraform, OpenTofu, CloudFormation, or similar tools that define infrastructure through version-controlled code.
Monitoring and Observability
Nice to haveExperience working with monitoring tools, metrics collection, log aggregation, or observability platforms that track system health and performance.
AWS or GCP Hands-On Experience
Nice to havePractical experience building and deploying applications on AWS or GCP, whether through free tier accounts, educational credits, or personal projects.
Database Fundamentals
Nice to haveBasic understanding of relational and non-relational databases, SQL queries, and how applications interact with persistent storage systems.
Open Source Contributions
Nice to haveExperience contributing to open-source projects, participating in collaborative code reviews, or engaging with developer communities demonstrates collaborative technical maturity.
Tech stack
Languages
Frameworks
Databases
Tools
Other
Compensation
Pay and benefits.
Base·USD 70,000 – 90,000
Equity·Stock options
Benefits
Healthcare and Wellness Coverage
Comprehensive health insurance including medical, dental, and vision coverage. As a healthcare-focused company, Solace prioritizes employee wellbeing and mental health support services.
Equity and Stock Options
Participation in Solace's equity compensation program as a Series C company, offering meaningful ownership stake and upside potential as the organization scales.
Professional Development and Learning Budget
Annual education budget for conferences, courses, certifications, and training to accelerate skill development in cloud platforms, infrastructure tools, and systems engineering.
Mentorship and Technical Training
Structured onboarding and personalized mentorship from experienced platform engineers who are invested in your growth. Access to internal knowledge resources and shadowing opportunities during on-call rotations.
Flexible Work Arrangement
Hybrid work schedule with 3 days per week in-person at Redwood City office, providing flexibility while maintaining strong team collaboration and culture.
Paid Time Off and Parental Leave
Generous PTO policy for vacation and personal days, plus competitive parental leave benefits supporting work-life balance.
Mission-Driven Culture and Impact
Opportunity to contribute to transforming healthcare through meaningful work with a lean, mission-driven team. Direct visibility into how your infrastructure work enables better patient outcomes in healthcare advocacy.
Competitive Startup Environment
Access to Series C funding and resources enabling rapid infrastructure growth, experimentation with cutting-edge technologies, and the ability to shape platform engineering practices from the ground up.
Process
Interview steps.
- 01
Initial Phone Screening
Recruiter conversation to discuss background, interest in platform engineering, and alignment with Solace's mission. Typical duration 20-30 minutes.
- 02
Technical Skills Assessment
Evaluation of Linux command-line proficiency, systems thinking, and troubleshooting approach through practical technical questions or scenario-based challenges. Assess understanding of cloud concepts and infrastructure fundamentals.
- 03
Infrastructure Design Discussion
Conversation with platform engineering team about how you approach system design problems, recent technical projects you've worked on, and your problem-solving methodology for infrastructure challenges.
- 04
Systems Troubleshooting Exercise
Take-home or interactive exercise simulating real troubleshooting scenarios. You'll be given a system description or broken infrastructure scenario and asked to diagnose issues and propose solutions using your analytical and technical skills.
- 05
Team Culture and Values Fit Interview
Conversation with platform engineering team members to assess curiosity, learning agility, communication style, and cultural alignment with Solace's intense, mission-driven environment and commitment to continuous improvement.
- 06
Leadership Discussion
Final conversation with platform engineering leadership about career goals, long-term trajectory in infrastructure engineering, and how Solace can support your professional growth as an entry-level engineer.
Full posting
Original listing.
About Solace
Healthcare in the U.S. is fundamentally broken. The system is so complex that 88% of U.S. adults do not have the health literacy necessary to navigate it without help. Solace cuts through the red tape of healthcare by pairing patients with expert advocates and giving them the tools to make better decisions—and get better outcomes.
We're a Series C startup, founded in 2022 and backed by Inspired Capital, Craft Ventures, Torch Capital, Menlo Ventures, Signalfire, and IVP. Our U.S. based team is lean, mission-driven, and growing quickly.
Solace isn't a place to coast. We're here to redefine healthcare—and that demands urgency, precision, and heart. If you're looking to stretch yourself, sharpen your edge, and do the best work of your life alongside a team that cares deeply, you're in the right place. We’re intense, and we like it that way.
Read more in our Bloomberg funding announcement here.
About the Role
You can’t help it: you see something that needs to be fixed, and you try to fix it. You want to pop open the hood, and see how it really works underneath. You don’t just want to get it going again, you want to improve it so that it doesn’t break in that particular way again.
Here at the Solace’s Platform Engineering team, we believe the best platform engineers are generalists. That in order to build reliable, resilient, and anti-fragile systems, you need to understand how systems fail, and how to fix them. We’re looking for new grads with the potential to become expert troubleshooters, and help us build our cloud infrastructure.
This is an in person role in our Redwood City office, 3 days a week.
What you will do
Help product and data engineers with their tooling and the internal developer platform
Help monitor systems health and triage signals
Participate in troubleshooting and applying fixes for outages along with the entire platform engineering team. While we don’t expect you to run solo on-call, we do expect you to tag along when systems break.
Participate in postmortems, systems analysis and architectural review
Ask questions
What you bring to the table
Curiosity about technology, how they work, and how they work with people.
A relentless drive to dig deep into the problem and form a picture of what’s going on.
Willingness to learn from mistakes and failures.
Thinking sideways when obvious approaches are unsuitable.
What you will learn
Get very comfortable on the command line and navigating Linux systems.
How to gather information on broken systems, form hypotheses, test them, and implement fixes.
How to use various mental frameworks to understand and evaluate systems and architecture, and identify patterns, and anti-patterns.
How to build infrastructure with GCP, AWS, OpenTofu, and Kubernetes.
Sounds like you?
Maybe you're already hosting something for a club or for your friends. Maybe you tried building a home lab, and the parts that broke taught you more than the parts that worked. Maybe you've shipped a class assignment and then found yourself more interested in what it was promising to everything around it — where it would fail, who would notice, what depended on it.
Applicants must be based in the United States.
Up for the Challenge?
We look forward to meeting you.
Fraudulent Recruitment Advisory: Solace Health will NEVER request bank details or offer employment without an interview. All legitimate communications come from official solace.health emails only or ashbyhq.com. Report suspicious activity to [email protected] or [email protected].
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