Head of Platform & Infrastructure Engineering

Ashby•,

1d•$340,000 - $400,000•Remote

About The Position

Ashby is hiring a Head of Platform & Infrastructure Engineering to lead the performance, reliability, and continued growth of its Platform & Infrastructure organization. The current team has 11 engineers, all Senior level or above and more than 70% Staff level. This leader will establish the team’s long-term vision and six-month roadmap, grow the team, and strengthen its partnership with Product Engineering so product teams can move quickly while maintaining performance and reliability. The role reports directly to Ashby’s Co-Founder and CTO. Responsibilities include improving monitoring and incident management, coordinating with Support during incidents, and managing vendor relationships and pricing for AWS, ClickHouse, Datadog, and Braintrust. The leader will hire individual contributors and managers, develop a headcount plan, and assess whether specialized roles are needed. A manager reporting to this role will likely be hired within the first six months. If the hire has developer experience and developer tools leadership experience, they may also build a dedicated DevEx team; otherwise, DevEx will report to Product Engineering. The first three months focus on learning Ashby Engineering and easing into leadership, while also contributing as an individual engineer by shipping product and infrastructure changes. The leader will create and refine a six-month onboarding plan and participate in 30-day, 60-day, 90-day, and six-month reviews with the CTO. Ashby describes its engineering culture as remote, low-meeting, high-ownership, and focused on collaboration, deliberate communication, developer tooling, and giving engineers autonomy. The company emphasizes regular working hours and flexibility, though periods of greater intensity may occur. Candidates must live within the PST-to-GMT time zones.

Requirements

Have played an important leadership role in guiding a company through a high-growth period, as an individual-contributor lead or engineering leader.
Have made high-quality decisions under pressure, balancing short-term product stability fixes with long-term investments.
Have experience hiring, building hiring processes, designing interviews and interview loops, and leading hiring strategy.
Have a track record of excellent cross-department collaboration and participation in company-level initiatives involving groups such as Product Engineering, Product, Sales, or Support.
Be knowledgeable about platform and infrastructure technologies, networking, and hardware, including Kubernetes, traffic flows between load balancers and pods, and how underlying hardware affects cloud abstractions.
Be a strong communicator, particularly in writing, and able to communicate technical infrastructure topics to both engineers and less technically experienced stakeholders.
Be comfortable managing a team spanning the Americas West Coast to Europe, including holding skip-level conversations with engineers.
Live within the PST-to-GMT time zones.
Have experience managing managers or be prepared to manage other leaders; the role is expected to hire a manager underneath it within the first six months.
Enjoy coding and staying current with technology.
Have experience leading a department within Engineering and shaping its culture and processes.

Nice To Haves

Experience managing developer experience and developer tools, which could lead to building a dedicated DevEx team.

Responsibilities

Build and maintain a long-term vision and six-month roadmap for Platform & Infrastructure.
Grow the Platform & Infrastructure team by hiring individual contributors and managers and developing a headcount plan.
Determine whether specialized roles, such as a database administrator, should be established.
Build and maintain an excellent relationship with Product Engineering to enable fast product development without sacrificing performance or reliability.
Assess and improve monitoring and incident management processes, including uptime measurement and coordination with Support during incidents.
Maintain vendor relationships and negotiate pricing for critical hosting and observability infrastructure, including AWS, ClickHouse, Datadog, and Braintrust.
Manage other leaders and likely hire a manager reporting to this role within the first six months.
If qualified by experience, build a dedicated Developer Experience team; otherwise, Developer Experience will report to Product Engineering.
Contribute to engineering culture and help preserve Ashby’s approach to autonomy, ownership, collaboration, and high-quality engineering.
During the first three months, learn Ashby Engineering and ship product, feature, and infrastructure changes as an individual contributor.

Benefits

Competitive salary and equity.
A 10-year exercise window for stock options.
Unlimited paid time off.
At least 12 weeks of fully paid parental leave, potentially longer outside the United States to align with regional requirements.
Generous equipment, software, and office furniture budget.
$100 per month education budget, with more expensive items such as conferences covered with manager approval.
In the United States, top-tier health insurance for employees and dependents, with premiums fully covered by Ashby.
Outside the United States, high-quality supplemental health insurance for employees and dependents, fully covered by Ashby.
Remote work and flexibility in structuring workdays and weeks.
In-person team and company gatherings at least twice a year, plus a small budget for meeting colleagues in one’s city or region.