Lead Platform Engineer

We are Rokt, a hyper-growth ecommerce leader. Rokt is the global leader in ecommerce, unlocking real-time relevance in the moment that matters most. Rokt's AI Brain and ecommerce Network powers billions of transactions connecting hundreds of millions of customers, and is trusted to do this by the world's leading companies.

We are a team of builders helping smart businesses find innovative ways to meet customer needs and generate incremental revenue. Leading companies drive 10-50% of additional revenue—and often all their profits—from the extra products or services they sell. This economic edge unleashes a world of possibilities for growth and innovation.

The Rokt engineering team builds best-in-class ecommerce technology that provides personalized and relevant experiences for customers globally and empowers marketers with sophisticated, AI-driven tooling to understand consumers better. Our bespoke platform handles millions of transactions per day. It considers billions of data points which give engineers the opportunity to build technology at scale, collaborate across teams and gain exposure to a wide range of technology.

Target total compensation ranges from $385,000 - $520,000, including a fixed annual salary of $260,000 - $320,000, an employee equity plan grant, and world-class benefits. 

Equity grants are issued in good faith and are subject to company policies, board approval, and individual eligibility.

As a Lead Platform Engineer, you'll be a player-coach: accountable for outcomes as a hands-on technical and people leader. This single posting covers three distinct roles. Candidates will be hired into one of the following teams: Build & Release, Compute, or Storage

About the role: 

What you'll do in any track

• Provide technical leadership and direction while remaining hands-on in design, code reviews, and operations
• Depending on experience and interest, take on either dotted-line project leadership or direct people management responsibilities
• Operate and evolve business-critical platforms in AWS and Kubernetes with a bias for reliability, performance, and security
• Champion infrastructure as code and automation, driving Terraform standards, CI-driven workflows, and strong operational practices
• Mentor engineers, set clear goals, run effective rituals, and foster a culture of ownership, collaboration, and continuous improvement
• Partner cross-functionally to align roadmaps, manage risk, and deliver measurable outcomes

Build & Release

• Own end-to-end CI/CD from commit to production using Buildkite or equivalent, ensuring fast feedback and safe, repeatable deployments
• Design and optimize container build pipelines (Docker/ECR), Helm packaging, and progressive delivery (Argo Rollouts, canary, blue/green)
• Evolve and operate the artifact ecosystem (e.g., Nexus, internal packages) for performance, consistency, and security
• Drive developer productivity through scalable build systems, caching strategies, and paved-road 

Compute

• Lead the design and operation of Kubernetes platforms and core addons (EKS, ECR, Helm, Argo, observability stacks)
• Own networking and runtime foundations: VPCs, peering, service mesh (Istio), ingress, DNS, and inter-service communication
• Build automation and platform tooling that improve scalability, deployment speed, cost efficiency, and resilience
• Partner with product teams to optimize workload orchestration, scheduling, and resource utilization

Storage

• Own and evolve distributed data platforms: Kafka, Cassandra, Trino, and data-lake ingestion
• Operate streaming and batch data pipelines at scale with strong SLAs on availability, durability, and performance
• Implement multi-region strategy, replication, and schema management with robust observability and incident response
• Improve reliability and efficiency across OLTP and OLAP systems through capacity planning and automation

About You:

Common Requirements

• 5+ years in infrastructure, platform, DevOps, or systems engineering, including technical leadership
• 2+ years of people management or tech-lead experience with demonstrated mentorship and performance management
• Proficiency with Terraform, Linux, scripting/automation (Python, Bash or similar), and cloud infrastructure (AWS preferred)
• Track record of leading complex initiatives, influencing architecture, and delivering tangible improvements in reliability and velocity
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills in fast-paced environments

Build & Release

• Deep expertise designing and operating CI/CD platforms (Buildkite or equivalent) and pipeline architectures
• Strong background with Docker/ECR, Helm, and progressive delivery patterns (Argo Rollouts, canary, blue/green)
• Experience operating artifact repositories (e.g., Nexus) and securing software supply chains

Compute

• Strong expertise in Kubernetes operations at scale (EKS), cluster add-ons, and platform observability
• Solid grounding in cloud networking and service meshes (VPCs, peering, Istio), ingress, and runtime hardening
• Experience building platform automation, controllers, or operators to reduce toil and improve resilience

Storage

• Deep experience with distributed systems for data: Kafka, Cassandra, Trino, and data-lake tooling
• Proven operation of multi-region streaming/batch systems, including replication, schema management, and capacity planning
• Familiarity with OLTP/OLAP performance tuning, durability trade-offs, and end-to-end data reliability

About Rokt'stars:

As a mission-driven, hyper-growth community of curious explorers, our ambition is to unlock real-time relevancy in ecommerce and beyond. Our bias for action means we are not afraid to quickly venture into uncharted territories, take risks, or challenge the status quo; in doing so we either win or learn. We work together as one aligned team never letting egos get in the way of brilliant ideas. We value diversity, transparency and smart humble people who enjoy building a disruptive business together. We pride ourselves on being a force for good as we make the world better. 

About the Benefits:

We leverage best-in-class technology and market-leading innovation in AI and ML, with all of that being underlined by building and maintaining a fantastic and inclusive culture where people can be their authentic selves and offering a great list of perks and benefits to go with it:

• Become a shareholder. Every Rokt'star gets equity in the company
• Enjoy catered lunch every day and healthy snacks in the office.
• Access generous retirement plans like a 4% dollar-for-dollar 401K matching plan and great health benefits for you and your dependents.
• Dog-friendly office
• Extra leave (bonus annual leave, sabbatical leave etc.) 
• Work with the greatest talent in town
• See the world We have offices in New York, Seattle, Sydney, Tokyo and London

We believe we're better together. We love spending time together and are in the office most days (teams are in the office minimum 4 days per week). 

We at Rokt choose to create a company that is as diverse and inclusive as the world we live in by attracting, growing & keeping the best talent. Equal employment opportunities are available to all applicants without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.

If this sounds like a role you'd enjoy, apply here, and you'll hear from our recruiting team.