Platform Engineer

Lead/Staff Platform Engineer / AI Infrastructure / $260,000-$340,000 +equity / A* Team / On-site SF Bay AreaAre you a Staff-calibre platform engineer tired of carrying the pager without having the authority to fix the architecture? Tired of meaningful systems work being buried beneath tickets, patches & process?The CompanyJoin one of the Bay Area’s fastest-growing Series B AI infrastructure companies. Its platform processes tens of millions of pages each month for customers ranging from startups to Fortune 10 enterprises - with a team of only around 50 people.You’ll own the distributed systems behind every customer workload: reliability, model serving, latency, scale & cost. The problems are already serious, but the team is still small enough for you to shape the architecture and become a defining platform hire.The TeamSmall, dense engineering org - around 60 people, ~30 in engineering. The core platform is currently run by just 3 people, and it needs to scale hard. The founders are technical operators who ship. If you want to own the infrastructure that every customer job runs on, THIS is the room.ProfileThis is not a "pure infra/DevOps" role and not an "ML research" role.You're a strong full-stack platform engineer first, who's comfortable owning distributed systems end-to-end and working closely with ML teams to get models served efficiently in production.You:* Have owned and scaled core infrastructure at a VC-backed startup* Think in systems: latency, reliability, cost, scale* Don't wait for permission to fix what's broken* Are comfortable being one of a handful of people responsible for platform healthStack: Python, distributed systems, task orchestration & workload scheduling, cloud infrastructure, model serving, databases, CI/CDThey're looking for people who:* Have owned mature, production-scale systems* Have Staff/Principal-level impact, or a fast promotion trajectory suggesting it* Can write full-stack platform code, not just infra config* Understand trade-offs between reliability, cost & speed at scale* Don't stall under ambiguity or on-call pressure* Want true end-to-end ownership of a system customers depend on daily* Think about the platform as a product, not a choreIn this role, you'll:* Own and improve the core platform* Work directly with ML teams to serve models efficiently in production* Build and maintain infrastructure: databases, task orchestration, cloud deployment* Drive improvements to distributed systems as volume scales* Participate in on-call rotation and own platform health end-to-end* Be one of a small handful of people who define how the platform is builtWhat's on offer:* $220,000 - $320,000 base + competitive equity* On-site, 5 days/week (SF) - early team, intentionally in-person - open to hybrid for exceptional candidates.* Direct ownership of infrastructure that's already running at real scale* Backing from top-tier investors with a fast-growing, proven product* Small team, high leverage, no bureaucracyInterview Process:1) Open Talent Recruiter Screen2) Hiring Manager & Technical Screen3) Technical Interview4) OfferEqual OpportunityWe're hiring for an Equal Opportunity Employer.Due to a strong response from the market, please apply immediately or email sufy@opentalent.uk to avoid missing out.*All our new jobs are posted here 1st:linkedin.com/in/sufyanbashir/