Principal Platform Engineer

From Bare Metal to Scalable Cloud

I've built my career by jumping into complex, often messy systems and figuring out how to make them better. From legacy codebases with no documentation to modern cloud-native platforms at scale, I've worked across the stack to deliver reliable, maintainable, and secure systems in environments where stability and velocity both matter.

These days, I operate at the principal level—driving platform strategy, infrastructure design, security posture, and data architecture. I've led company-wide migrations, designed systems that unlock team velocity, and solved problems that don't fit neatly into a sprint or a ticket queue.

Skills

DevSecOps Cloud Architecture Kubernetes Infrastructure as Code Python Go C/C++ AWS React PostgreSQL Generative AI Large Language Models LLM Agents Data Engineering Engineering Leadership

Projects

Data Lake Ingestion Framework

Designed and executed a business-critical data lake ingestion framework, integrating diverse third-party and internal data sources to power analytics and product insights.

Tech: AWS, Python, Kubernetes

Infrastructure Modernization

Modernized a legacy monolith deployed on manually provisioned cloud servers into a CI/CD-driven microservices architecture with self-managed Kubernetes in AWS.

Tech: Kubernetes, Terraform, AWS, CI/CD

Conversational Intelligence Engine

Designed and implemented a stateful conversational engine capable of retaining and reusing contextual signals across interactions, enabling more intelligent, personalized user experiences.

Tech: Python, scikit-learn, pandas

Experience

Principal Platform Engineer @ BetterLesson

August 2024 - Present (10 months)

Serve as the technical lead for Platform Engineering at BetterLesson, driving strategy and execution across DevSecOps, data engineering, and infrastructure. Architect and oversee the development of scalable, secure, and high-performance platform components, enabling product teams to deliver reliably and at speed.

Principal Engineer - Architect @ BetterLesson

August 2023 - August 2024 (1 year 1 month)

Led key architectural initiatives and served as a Principal Engineer across high-impact projects, with a focus on scalability, security, and cross-functional alignment. Acted as the primary engineering point of contact for the company's SOC 2 certification process—hands-on in both implementation and evidence collection—ensuring audit readiness and cross-team compliance.

Senior Software Engineer @ BetterLesson

September 2021 - August 2023 (2 years)

Modernized a legacy monolith deployed on manually provisioned cloud servers into a CI/CD-driven microservices architecture, deployed on a self-managed Kubernetes cluster in AWS. Led infrastructure transformation by converting ad-hoc provisioning into fully automated Infrastructure as Code (IaC), improving reliability, repeatability, and auditability.

Software Engineer @ TEKsystems (IBM SoftLayer)

September 2020 - September 2021 (1 year 1 month)

Contracted as a Software Engineer with SoftLayer, an IBM Company, contributing to the development and maintenance of IBM Cloud's software infrastructure. Delivered new features and enhancements to core systems while supporting operational reliability through active participation in on-call rotations.

Senior Software Consultant @ Headstorm

October 2019 - April 2020 (7 months)

Delivered high-impact solutions across diverse technology stacks, partnering with multiple clients to solve complex technical challenges and accelerate product delivery. Designed and implemented responsive, data-driven single-page applications using React and Redux.

Software Developer @ Snowfall Technologies

March 2017 - October 2019 (2 years 8 months)

Developed advanced data-driven solutions using Python, scikit-learn, and pandas to support individualized customer workflows. Built predictive systems that surfaced actionable behavioral insights and designed a stateful conversational engine capable of retaining contextual signals across interactions.

Software Engineer @ Dover Fueling Solutions

April 2015 - March 2017 (2 years)

Quickly became a key contributor in a complex VB.NET codebase, taking ownership of challenging debugging and maintenance tasks across critical legacy systems. Designed and implemented a hierarchical configuration system that enabled smart defaults and streamlined customization through data-driven overrides.

Education

The University of Texas at Dallas

2015 - 2016

Bachelor of Science (B.S.), Computer Science and Software Engineering (Double Major)

Collin County Community College

2010 - 2014

Associate of Science (A.S.), Computer Science

Certifications

Professional Development

5-Day Gen AI Intensive Course

Machine Learning

Contact

Ready to discuss platform strategy or engineering challenges? Reach out.

Email: [email protected]

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/c-eubanks

Website: ceubanks.com