Partner 20, Senior IT & AI Platform Engineer, San Francisco/Menlo Park

a16z•San Francisco, CA

14d•$221,000 - $258,000•Hybrid

About The Position

We’re hiring a Senior IT & AI Platform Engineer to build, deploy, and operate enterprise systems, AI applications, and cloud infrastructure that help teams across a16z execute with speed, confidence, and security. You’ll lead complex technical deployments, serve as a trusted technical escalation point for stakeholders, manage privileged access across critical systems, and reduce friction through reliable automations and self-service workflows. This is a hands-on role within the IT Systems team, working closely with Cybersecurity, Engineering, Product, Data, and other business units across the firm. On a typical day, you’ll be orchestrating multiple AI coding agents, managing AWS or GCP infrastructure, and guiding a business unit to deploy a custom vibe-coded application. You’ll be expected to take on complex, often ambiguous or urgent requests, understand what’s needed, and deliver outcomes that are secure, well documented, and easy to support. This role requires an in-office presence 3 days a week in either our San Francisco, CA or Menlo Park, CA office.

Requirements

8 years of experience in platform engineering, systems administration, cloud infrastructure, or IT engineering, with responsibility for production systems
A power user of advanced AI workflows, going beyond such tools as ChatGPT/Codex, Claude Code, Wispr Flow
Experience transforming IT operations by leveraging AI
Experience deploying AI applications with enterprise systems and data, including SSO, provisioning, integrations, permissions, administrative controls, and staged rollouts
Experience shipping internal applications or tools from prototype to production, including authentication, API integrations, deployment, and ongoing support
Hands-on AWS and GCP experience, including IAM, networking, application hosting, storage, and logging, plus infrastructure-as-code tools such as Terraform, CloudFormation, or Pulumi
Experience administering or supporting Databricks, including workspaces, service principals, permissions, and monitoring, in partnership with data engineering teams
Experience administering modern enterprise infrastructure and SaaS ecosystems such as Okta, Google Workspace, Slack, GitHub, Jamf, Intune, and cloud-native environments
Experience building maintainable automations and API integrations using code and low-code/no-code platforms, with version control, testing, monitoring, and safe deployment practices
Ability to diagnose complex problems across enterprise systems, infrastructure, identity, and integrations, and weigh security, reliability, cost, and user experience when choosing solutions
Experience making changes to production systems with adequate testing, monitoring, rollback plans, and responding effectively when things go wrong, and communicating appropriately throughout.
Low ego, high empathy: you listen to different perspectives, question your assumptions, and use evidence to find the best solutions
High agency: you take initiative, manage priorities, navigate ambiguity, collaborate effectively, and proactively communicate progress, risks, and blockers

Responsibilities

Take ownership of the firm's toughest IT challenges around AI deployments, making consequential technical decisions and building lasting solutions that teams across a16z depend on
Co-own the technical implementation of new enterprise systems and emerging AI applications, including evaluating, testing, and deploying new capabilities securely and at scale
Identify opportunities to reduce manual toil and build automations across the entire IT organization
Partner with business teams and internal builders to turn ideas into working applications—from early prototypes through deployment, hardening, and ongoing support
Build and operate AWS and GCP infrastructure
Partner with Cybersecurity to protect sensitive data and manage privileged access across AI, SaaS, cloud, endpoint, and internal systems
Work with internal stakeholders to support Databricks and cloud AI services, including workspace configuration, service principals, access controls, and operational monitoring
Serve as a trusted technical escalation point for cybersecurity, engineering, data, and other business units. Work with stakeholders to untangle complex problems and find a clear path forward
Participate in incident response and root-cause analysis to restore service and prevent future issues across the firm’s enterprise systems
Maintain clear documentation, runbooks, and decision records, and share knowledge to help the IT team operate more effectively