Platform Engineer (Backend · DevOps · AI-Leveraged)
Summary
Senior platform engineer owning the backend and infrastructure of HYDRA, an AI-powered operational intelligence platform by The Awareness Company in Johannesburg — core services, data platform, auth, CI/CD, and cloud infra. Stack is .NET/C#, Microsoft SQL Server, and Azure, with an AI-first workflow built around Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, and Copilot.
Job Details
The Awareness Company Fourways, Johannesburg, Gauteng
Platform Engineer (Backend DevOps AI-Leveraged)
Full Time Hybrid AI, Big Data
Type: Full Time
Arrangement: Hybrid
Posted: Wed. 22 Jul. 2026
Deadline: Fri. 30 Oct. 2026
Start Date: ASAP
Experience: Senior
Required Skills
- .NET
- C#
- DevOps
- Microsoft SQL Server
- Genuine
- current
- hands-on experience using AI coding tools (Claude Code
- Cursor
- Aider
Job Description
We're looking for a deeply technical Platform Engineer to own the backend and infrastructure heart of HYDRA - the systems everything else runs on. This is the most load-bearing engineering role at TACo. You'll own the data platform, the services, and the deployment infrastructure that turn millions of operational data points into a fast, reliable, multi-tenant product, and you'll lead the single most important delivery of our year: migrating every customer onto our next-generation platform.
At TACo, we're building HYDRA, our AI-powered operational intelligence platform serving customers operating complex physical environments across Africa. This role owns the platform foundations HYDRA stands on: the data layer, the core services, authentication, scale and reliability, and the CI/CD and cloud infrastructure that ships it all.
This is not a role for someone who wants tickets handed to them. You'll be the technical authority on backend platform and infrastructure, working directly with the CTO to make the architectural calls that determine whether HYDRA is fast, stable, and scalable - or not.
Above all, you work AI-first. We are a heavily AI-leveraged engineering team - Claude Code, Cursor, Codex and Copilot are core to how we build, not curiosities. We expect an experienced engineer using these tools to reach completion several times faster than the same engineer without them. You bring the judgement, architecture, and verification; AI carries much of the build.
You'll be part of a lean, high-agency startup team where your work directly determines whether customers get a platform they can rely on.
Check out the role here https://work.awarenesscompany.co.za/
Ultimate KPIs
By day 90, success means all 100+ customers migrated onto the next-generation platform with zero data loss, the auth overhaul (off IdentityServer4 to SSO + passwordless) and the .NET 8 / Azure Functions v4 runtime upgrades shipped, and the platform running fast, observable, and reliable at target load with the known incident classes designed out.CI/CD, infrastructure-as-code, monitoring, and runbooks are in place and owned across the team - not trapped in one head - with you established as the technical authority on the HYDRA platform.
Daily Responsibilities
Day to day, you own HYDRA's backend platform end-to-end - the core services, the read-optimised data layer, and the data pipelines ingesting from telemetry, WhatsApp, field agents, documents, and third-party systems.You build and run the CI/CD pipeline, infrastructure-as-code, and observability, carry primary incident response, and diagnose and fix the failure modes that take platforms down (connection-pool exhaustion, query amplification, cache concurrency, unbounded load).You build AI-first with Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, and Copilot, partner with the CTO on architecture, set technical standards across backend, data, and DevOps, and keep the platform legible through runbooks and documentation the whole team can rely on.