Head of Platform Engineering

Plaud • Palo Alto, CA

1d

About The Position

Plaud is hiring a Head of Platform Engineering to lead its Platform organization across the US and Asia. The Platform team builds and operates shared services used by product teams, including authentication and access control, third-party integrations, public APIs and developer tools, billing and payments, file storage and sync, shared app frameworks and design systems, internal support tools, and search.

The role will define the Platform strategy and build enterprise foundations to support Plaud’s move upmarket, including SSO, SCIM, fine-grained permissions, audit capabilities, and regional data residency in partnership with Infrastructure. Platform services are to be managed as products, with clear internal customers, documented interfaces, dated commitments, regular feedback, and a company-wide roadmap.

The Head of Platform Engineering will establish standards for shared systems, own reliability and SLOs, and oversee on-call in partnership with Infrastructure. The role also leads hiring, mentorship, and growth of senior engineers and team leads in the US and Asia, using written specifications, a fixed daily overlap, and close collaboration with the lead architect in Asia. Billing and subscription logic may be brought into Platform over time.

Requirements

• 12+ years of software engineering experience.
• 5+ years leading platform or infrastructure-adjacent teams of 15+ engineers.
• Proven experience building identity, permissions, or API platforms for enterprise SaaS, such as SSO/SAML, SCIM, RBAC/ABAC, multi-tenant workspace models, or public APIs.
• Experience running an internal platform as a product, with clear interfaces, SLOs, and customer feedback loops.
• Demonstrated success leading distributed teams across the US and Asia.
• Deep backend expertise in Go, Java, or a similar language.
• Strong distributed systems and cloud-native architecture skills, including AWS/GCP and Kubernetes.
• Experience building under SOC 2, GDPR, and HIPAA controls and supporting audits.
• Routinely uses AI tools in daily work and can demonstrate recent usage during the interview.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with billing and entitlement systems such as Stripe or Metronome.
• Recognized technical influence through open-source contributions, conference talks, or technical publications.

Responsibilities

• Define and drive the strategy for the Platform Engineering organization across the US and Asia.
• Lead teams responsible for sign-in and access control, third-party integrations, public APIs and developer tools, billing and payments, file storage and sync, shared app frameworks, internal support and admin tools, and search.
• Build enterprise foundations, including SSO, SCIM, fine-grained permissions, audit capabilities, and regional data residency in partnership with Infrastructure.
• Run Platform services as products with clear internal customers, documented interfaces, dated commitments, and regular user-team feedback.
• Gather requests from product teams each quarter and publish a Platform roadmap with dependable dates.
• Set engineering standards for shared systems so other teams can contribute changes with design sign-off.
• Lead a distributed team across the US and Asia through written specifications, fixed daily overlap, and close partnership with the lead architect in Asia.
• Own reliability, SLOs, and on-call for Platform services, working with Infrastructure on production access and deployment pipelines.
• Hire, mentor, and grow senior engineers and team leads in the US and Asia.
• Over time, bring billing and subscription logic into Platform.

Benefits

• Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP).
• Access to AI productivity tools, including Gemini, Claude Code, and other frontier AI systems.
• Choice of top-spec laptops, high-performance workstation setups, and Plaud devices for new hires.
• Annual company offsites and team events.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed