Director of Engineering Platforms

You're a **team builder and org leader** first, and a **builder at heart**. You set direction, attract talent, remove blockers, and create conditions where great engineers do their best work. You don't need to be the smartest person in the room on every technical domain — but you need to know enough to ask the right questions, earn technical credibility, and make good decisions when the experts disagree. You'll report directly to the VP of Engineering and be a peer to Directors leading brand engineering teams. You'll be expected to operate with high autonomy, surface blockers early, and move fast without waiting for permission on things in your scope **What You'll Do** - **Define and lead the Engineering Platforms org** — structure the org, direct report team, and establish ownership across defined pillars - **Drive the platform shift** — help transition Sembi from centralized DevOps to a platform engineering model where the road and guardrails are built for internal teams own their services end-to-end - **Build the data and AI infrastructure layer** — canonical data strategy across 8 products; AI platform foundations (model gateway, eval framework, training pipeline) that power Sembi's product AI roadmap - **Govern cloud and infra** — multi-brand cloud strategy, cost optimization, security posture, and vendor relationships - **Partner with brand engineering leads** — your platforms are their enabler; you'll build with them through innersourcing while reducing cognitive load so they can scale faster - **Translate technical complexity into business outcomes** — communicate platform strategy and tradeoffs clearly to the VP of Engineering, ELT, and board where relevant **What We're Looking For** **Must-haves:** - Track record and passion for collaboratively building and scaling platforms used by development teams - Ability to think of platforms as products and convincingly connect the work to human value and business outcomes - Experience leading and growing engineering teams of employees, contractors, and agents - Strong understanding of cloud infrastructure, delivery patterns, observability, data infrastructure, and AI/ML concepts - Able to cast compelling AI vision for others while leading by example with personal usage - Tenacity for building high value services - Clear communication and ability to work with a distributed workforce **Nice to have:** - Experience with internal developer platforms (Backstage, custom IDP, or equivalent) - Development/engineering background - Experience in multi-product or multi-brand business environments - Familiarity with AI infrastructure patterns (model gateways, RAG pipelines, eval frameworks, MCP) **Not required but noted:** - Specific tooling we use: AWS, GCP, Azure, GitHub, Bitbucket, ArgoCD, Netbird, OTEL, Grafana, Prometheus, MongoDB **Why This Role** - Greenfield scope — you'll define the function, not inherit someone else's vision - Direct impact on how 8 product engineering teams build and ship - AI-forward environment — Sembi is actively building AI into its products and its engineering workflow - Reporting line with access and visibility — direct to VP of Engineering with active ELT support for the platform direction - A leadership team that believes platform investment is a strategic multiplier, not overhead An Equal Opportunity Employer - All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or status as a protected veteran. By submitting your application, you acknowledge that Sembi, Inc. will process and retain your resume and related personal information solely for recruitment and hiring purposes. Resumes of unsuccessful candidates will be securely deleted within twelve (12) months of the hiring decision, unless a longer period is required by law or you provide explicit consent for continued retention (e.g., for consideration for future opportunities).…