Director of Platform Engineering

Director of Platform Engineering About Helios Coffee Helios Coffee is a modern coffee company focused on quality, consistency, and experience. We believe great teams build great products, and we invest in both. ABOUT THE ROLE We’re seeking a Director of Platform Engineering to lead our infrastructure, reliability, developer experience, and core backend platform efforts. This is a strategic, high-ownership leadership role responsible for building and guiding the teams that ensure the platform is secure, scalable, observable, and engineered for velocity. In this role, you will set technical direction, drive architectural strategy, empower engineering teams with world-class tooling, and lead initiatives that enable the entire organization to move faster with confidence. You’ll work closely with product, engineering leadership, and cross-functional stakeholders to shape the platform that will support the company’s next phase of growth. WHAT YOU’LL DO - Lead and scale the Platform Engineering organization, including infrastructure, DevOps/SRE, and core backend platform teams. - Define the long-term platform vision, architecture, and technical roadmap. - Ensure the reliability, scalability, and security of our systems as usage grows. - Invest in developer experience through improved tooling, CI/CD pipelines, and streamlined workflows. - Drive standards and best practices for observability, incident response, and operational excellence. - Partner with engineering leaders to align platform capabilities with product and business goals. - Guide major architectural decisions and modernization initiatives. - Mentor, coach, and develop engineering managers and senior ICs. - Collaborate closely with security, product, and data teams on cross-functional initiatives. - Build a healthy, collaborative engineering culture grounded in ownership, trust, and technical rigor. WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR - 8–12+ years of engineering experience, with 4+ years leading platform, infrastructure, or SRE teams. - Deep expertise in cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, or Azure), distributed systems, and high-scale architectures. - Proven experience driving platform strategy and building systems that support rapid product growth. - Strong understanding of developer tooling, CI/CD, observability, and modern DevOps practices. - Experience hiring, scaling, and developing high-performing engineering teams. - Excellent communication skills — able to influence executives, partner across teams, and break down complex concepts. - Comfort operating in a fast-moving, ambiguous startup environment. - A leadership approach that blends empathy, high standards, and strong technical judgment. NICE-TO-HAVES - Experience scaling SaaS products or mission-critical systems. - Background in platform orgs at high-growth startups or mid-stage tech companies. - Familiarity with service mesh, multi-region architectures, event-driven systems, or zero-downtime migrations. - Experience managing budgets, vendor relationships, and long-horizon technical investments. - A track record of building internal platforms that significantly improve engineering productivity. WHY YOU’LL LOVE WORKING HERE - Massive ownership and influence — you’ll shape the foundation of the company's technology for years to come. - Opportunity to build and scale a platform organization from an early inflection point. - A thoughtful, collaborative culture that values technical excellence and sustainable velocity. - Competitive compensation, equity, and benefits. If you’re excited about what we’re building, we’d love to hear from you.