Platform Engineering is a discipline central to modern tech-driven organizations, providing a robust foundation upon which applications and services are built, deployed, and scaled. At Productboard, Platform Engineering isn't just about the infrastructure; it's the intersection of development tools, infrastructure automation, and operational best practices. Our Platform Engineering efforts ensure that developers have a paved path to build software and that applications have a resilient, efficient, and scalable environment to thrive.

We're searching for a Director of Platform Engineering to steer this pivotal function. This role will encompass the management of five core teams, each contributing distinct expertise:

• Infrastructure: The muscle behind our cloud services, handling everything from AWS infrastructure and Kubernetes clusters to our observability platform, Kafka event bus, and CDN. They’re responsible for making sure our platform is resilient, scalable, and cost-effective.
• DevX: This team is all about optimizing the productivity of our engineers. They handle CI/CD and develop tools to enhance local development and automate routine tasks.
• Quality Engineering (QE): QE ensures robustness at all levels by designing testing frameworks and strategizing from unit tests up to performance testing.
• Monolith Gardeners: Our Ruby monolith’s custodians, ensure its stability, scalability, and optimal cost operation. While they're not on the product development frontline, they play a crucial role in maintaining our system's backbone.
• Data Engineering: Turning raw data into actionable insights, they manage our data infrastructure, pipelines, and visualization tools, aiding the business in making data-driven decisions.

This role doesn’t stop there. You'll be the guiding force for our core guilds in Architecture, Backend, and Frontend, and work hand-in-hand with our Security team to make sure we're ticking all compliance boxes.

Leading a talented group of three managers and a collective force of 25 brilliant minds, you’ll be central to making sure our platform remains top-notch.

On a Typical Day, You Will…

• Manage and Mentor: Lead and coach your teams, fostering an environment of growth and high performance.
• Strategize: Lay out the roadmap for our Platform Engineering efforts, looking at both immediate needs and long-term goals.
• Recruit: As we expand, you'll play a part in bringing aboard talented individuals to bolster our technical capabilities.
• Engage with the core guilds: You'll also be the executive sponsor for our core guilds around Architecture, Backend, and Frontend. This means you'll help set the direction and back them up as they work to streamline our engineering approaches across the company.
• Collaborate with Security: Team up with the Security department to make sure we're hitting our marks on SoC 2 and ISO 27001 compliance.
• Oversee the budget: With the Infrastructure team handling a big chunk of our software spend, you'll keep an eye on budget allocation and usage, ensuring we get the most out of our resources.

About you

• Experienced leader of leaders: You've managed multiple teams before, steering them to success.
• Mentorship: You've got a knack for helping team members grow, guiding them in their careers, and fostering a positive work environment.
• Team Player: You've worked cross-functionally before, understanding the importance of pulling together with other departments and leaders.
• Budget Management: Large budgets? No problem. You know how to allocate and track funds effectively.
• Technical Background: A strong understanding, particularly of infrastructure and backend workings, is crucial. You know the nuts and bolts of services like AWS, Kubernetes, and the broader ecosystem.
• Scaling and Reliability: With your involvement in SRE practices, you'll be at the forefront of ensuring our platform's robustness and readiness.
• Hands-off Coding: While you understand tech deeply, your role here won't involve diving into code. Your skills will be applied in leadership and strategy.

Our tech stack

We work with the following frameworks, tools, and languages:

• Infrastructure: AWS, Kubernetes, Terraform
• Storage: PostgreSQL, Elastic, Redis
• Backend: JVM/Kotlin, Ruby, Kafka
• Frontend: TypeScript, React.js
• Data Pipeline: Python, Keboola, Looker, Snowflake