Platform Engineer

TL;DR

• Own and build Breaker's CI/CD platform from the ground up — GitLab, AWS, Docker, Infrastructure as Code

• The work is robotics-shaped: pipelines for robotics codebases, containerised sim and robot workloads, and closing the sim-to-real feedback loop

• 5–7 years experience in DevOps or Platform Engineering, ideally in a startup or scale-up environment

• Strong expertise in GitLab CI/CD, AWS, Docker, and Linux systems

• Working rights in Australia required

• Join an exciting startup backed by globally recognised investors at the bleeding edge of physical AI

About Breaker

The way humans use robots is broken.

Modern problems demand more robots than we have operators. Every drone, ground vehicle, and maritime system requires dedicated training, manual control, and constant oversight. One operator per robot. One pilot per mission.

Breaker's AI agent breaks this constraint.

Our technology turns any robot into a truly autonomous, self-organising teammate. Operators command and query teams of robots through natural language conversations over the push-to-talk radios they already carry — no laptops, no controllers, no additional gear.

Instead of manually flying search patterns across three different screens, you say, "survey this area and flag anything unusual." The robot team figures out how to divide the task, coordinate their movements, and report back what matters.

We're fundamentally changing the operator-to-robot ratio. Small teams become force multipliers.

Our software deploys directly onboard each robot, enabling real-time, intent-driven control even in contested environments with limited bandwidth. We're solving problems most AI companies never touch: sub-second inference on edge hardware with strict latency, power, and connectivity constraints.

We're backed by some of the best investors globally and growing our team across Austin, Texas, and Sydney, Australia. We're a small team of experienced engineers moving fast on technology that will define how humans and machines work together for decades to come.

Join us if you want to help build the robots we were promised

About the Role

We're looking for a Platform Engineer to own and shape Breaker's CI/CD platform and cloud infrastructure. This is a foundational role where you'll build the systems every engineer at Breaker depends on to ship software. Think GitOps methodology, Infrastructure as Code, and a shift-left mindset that puts quality tooling directly into developers' hands.

The twist: our pipelines don't just deploy to the cloud, they get autonomy software onto real robots. You'll build the infrastructure that closes the loop between simulation and field — so bugs caught in the field that could have been caught in sim trend toward zero.

You'll be the go-to person for CI pipeline stability, build optimisation, package management, and the AWS infrastructure that underpins it all. You'll work closely with the engineering team daily, sitting alongside developers, unblocking them, and teaching best practices that compound across the organisation. Every improvement you make multiplies the output of the entire team — this is high-leverage work, and you'll feel it.

This role reports to engineering leadership and carries real autonomy over CI strategy and execution. You'll play a key part in building the infrastructure that scales Breaker across Australia and the United States.

Key Responsibilities

• Own the CI/CD platform end-to-end: pipeline design, stability, speed, and observability across GitLab

• Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines for our robotics codebases

• Build and manage cloud infrastructure on AWS using Infrastructure as Code (IaC), including runners, networking (VPNs, VPCs), and compute

• Containerise simulation and robotics workloads; maintain Docker patterns the team can reuse

• Automate testing so bugs caught in the field that could have been caught in sim trend toward zero

• Optimise build processes: Dockerfile restructuring, container size reduction, caching strategies, and package registry management

• Establish observability, reporting, and alerting across platform systems to surface issues before they become blockers

• Champion a shift-left approach — push tooling like pre-commit hooks and linting into developer environments to catch issues early

• Adopt and enforce GitOps methodology: Git as the single source of truth for infrastructure and pipeline configuration

• Partner with software engineers daily — joining standups, shortening iteration loops, and acting as first point of contact for CI and infrastructure issues

• Mentor and educate the engineering team on platform best practices, building a culture of shared ownership over platform quality

About You

Required Skills and Experience

• 5–7+ years of experience in DevOps or Platform Engineering roles

• Deep expertise in GitLab CI/CD: pipeline architecture, runners, configuration, and administration

• Strong AWS experience: IaC (Terraform/CloudFormation), networking, compute, and cost management

• Advanced Docker knowledge: multi-stage builds, image optimisation, registry management

• Strong Linux systems administration and package management (comfortable with internals, e.g. Debian packaging)

• Experience with GitOps workflows and automation-first infrastructure management

• Excellent communication skills — you can explain infrastructure decisions to software engineers and collaborate effectively with passionate developers

• Working rights in Australia

Highly Valued Experience

• Background in startup or scale-up environments where you owned systems end-to-end

• Familiarity with robotics or embedded systems build tooling (e.g. ROS 2, cross-compilation)

• Experience with hardware-in-the-loop test infrastructure or on-premise/hybrid workloads

• Exposure to MLOps workflows: managing data pipelines, GPU infrastructure, or model lifecycle tooling

• Experience with compliance frameworks (ITAR, CMMC, or similar) and multi-region infrastructure

• Mentoring ability — you've helped junior engineers grow and are comfortable guiding others

Why Join Us?

You'll be an owner, not a renter. We're at the stage where foundational decisions are still being made and entire systems need to be built from scratch. Your work won't be maintaining someone else's legacy — you'll be creating what comes next. The problems you solve and the systems you build will define how Breaker scales.

You'll work with people who've done this before. Our team has shipped production robotics systems, scaled infrastructure, and solved the kind of hard integration problems that only come up when software meets the physical world. You won't be the only person in the room who's debugged a sensor fusion pipeline or optimised inference on a Jetson.

You'll solve problems that don't exist anywhere else. Most companies are building incremental improvements on established technology. We're defining new categories — which means the work is harder, more ambiguous, and infinitely more interesting.

You'll work hard, together. We're in the office every day, grinding on hard problems alongside great people. We've built a workspace where the best work happens — access to hardware, quick decisions, real collaboration. We're flexible when life requires it, but we're looking for people who want to show up, get stuck in, and build something significant with a team they respect.

We're going global. Backed by globally recognised investors, we're growing teams across Sydney, Australia and Austin, Texas. If you want exposure to international expansion and the opportunity to help build across regions, that path exists here.

You'll own what you build. Generous equity packages mean when Breaker wins, you win.

Location: Cicada Innovations, Eveleigh, Sydney, Australia (National Innovation Centre)

If you're excited about the opportunity to work at the bleeding edge of physical AI, we'd love to hear from you.