Ralph King Jr

ralph@kingralph.dev Maryland, US kingralph.dev linkedin.com/in/ralphkingjr

Professional Summary

Software Engineer and Platform Engineer with 8+ years delivering mission-critical applications and platform infrastructure for federal government systems. Experienced in CI/CD automation, containerized platforms, and cloud-native delivery, working across development, platform, and security teams to enable reliable software delivery.

Professional Experience

Senior Platform Engineer April 2026 – Present

Northramp LLC Remote

Build internal CI/CD tooling and reusable pipeline templates that enable the program's development team to self-service builds and deployments without platform-team bottlenecks.
Develop command-line tools and automation scripts that standardize developer workflows and reduce manual toil across the delivery lifecycle.
Design and maintain CI/CD pipelines with an emphasis on automation, repeatability, and secure delivery practices for a federal program.
Support containerized, cloud-native platforms including Kubernetes-based environments alongside software, platform, and security engineers.
Technologies: Python, Kubernetes, Docker, Azure DevOps, CI/CD, Infrastructure as Code, Ansible, Terraform

Lead Software Engineer January 2025 – March 2026

Department of Agriculture (USDA) – Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) Washington, DC

Shipped workflow automation application that processed 8,000+ submissions in first week of launch, reducing approval times from weeks to same-day turnaround.
Led product decision-making without dedicated PM, evaluating feature tradeoffs and pushing back on requests that would compromise system reliability and reporting capabilities.
Delivered business-critical application as a 2-person team in 3 months, digitizing manual paper-based processes for agency-wide adoption.
Technologies: Python, Django, Flask, JavaScript, React, PostgreSQL, OpenShift, Kubernetes, Docker, Azure DevOps, Elasticsearch, Git

Software Engineer September 2020 – January 2025

Department of Agriculture (USDA) – Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) Remote

Built web applications for FSIS programs using Python/Django and JavaScript, working directly with business stakeholders to gather requirements and design solutions.
Architected and implemented CI/CD automation infrastructure for nine enterprise applications, migrating from TFS to Azure DevOps with automated workflows and deployment pipelines.
Mentored developers and interns on full-stack development, automated testing frameworks, and CI/CD practices.
Technologies: Python, Django, Flask, JavaScript, TypeScript, Java, Ruby, OpenShift, Kubernetes, Docker, Azure DevOps, Git

Software Engineer August 2017 – September 2020

Skyline Technology Solutions Glen Burnie, MD / Remote

Built full-stack web applications and internal tools for private industry companies, county governments, and non-profits.
Developed real-time monitoring dashboards using Node.js and React for distributed video streaming platforms.
Technologies: JavaScript, Node.js, React, Angular, Python, Java, PHP, MySQL, Docker, AWS, Playwright, Ansible, Git

Technical Skills

Languages & Frameworks Python, Django, Flask, JavaScript, TypeScript, Node.js, React, Angular, Java, Ruby

Infrastructure & DevOps Kubernetes, OpenShift, Docker, Azure DevOps, Jenkins, GitHub Actions, Ansible, Terraform

Cloud Azure, GCP, AWS

Databases & Tools PostgreSQL, MySQL, Elasticsearch, Git