Engineering Manager, Platform Engineering
Overview
The Platform Engineering Manager at Braze leads a team of engineers in building and managing a robust platform that simplifies application deployment and operations. This role requires a blend of technical leadership, engineering management, and product management expertise.
Responsibilities
Build, mentor, and grow a high-performing team of platform engineers (Platform Software Engineers and Platform Infrastructure Engineers)
Foster an inclusive and collaborative culture where engineers thrive and are empowered to innovate
Conduct regular 1:1s, performance reviews, and career development planning to support team member growth and engagement
Define platform services as products with clear business value, user personas, and success metrics
Engage with internal engineering teams to gather requirements and feedback
Prioritize features and initiatives based on business impact, user needs, and technical feasibility
Develop roadmaps for platform products, ensuring alignment with organizational goals and the overall Infrastructure vision
Communicate the value of platform services to stakeholders, driving adoption and ensuring satisfaction
Provide technical leadership to guide architectural decisions, scalability strategies, and system design
Lead trade-off discussions between reliability, scalability, and feature development to balance short- and long-term goals
Advocate for best practices in platform engineering, including automation, observability, and secure design principles
Collaborate with Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) leadership and embedded SREs to ensure platform reliability aligns with Service Level Objectives (SLOs) and error budgets
Collaborate on monitoring, alerting, and proactive system health initiatives to reduce downtime and enhance stability
Ensure a seamless partnership between platform engineers and SREs to drive a culture of operational excellence
Implement and advocate for processes that reduce operational toil and increase team efficiency
Lead incident management efforts, including response coordination and post-mortem reviews, to improve reliability
Ensure all platform services meet high availability, fault tolerance, and security standards
Manage multiple concurrent projects using sound project management principles to ensure timely delivery
Establish and track success metrics, milestones, and timelines for team initiatives
Drive a continuous improvement mindset within the team, iterating on processes and platform capabilities
Qualifications
5-7+ years in platform engineering, DevOps, or a related field with increasing responsibility
Strong track record of owning and delivering platform services that drive significant business value
Hands-on experience with building and scaling internal platforms, ideally with Kubernetes, cloud infrastructure (AWS/GCP/Azure), and CI/CD pipelines
Exceptional technical skills, with expertise in platform engineering principles, automation, and infrastructure-as-code (e.g., Terraform)
Exceptional product management capabilities, including gathering requirements, defining user stories, and managing feature prioritization
Excellent project management skills, with the ability to balance competing priorities and deliver high-impact results
Exceptional cross-functional collaboration and relationship-building skills, with a focus on alignment across engineering, leadership, and internal stakeholders
Comfortable working with SREs and other engineering functions to achieve shared reliability and operational goals
Strong communicator, capable of articulating complex ideas and decisions clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences
Product-first mindset: passionate about building internal tools and services that deliver exceptional value to their users
Forward-thinking and innovative, always seeking ways to improve platform capabilities and developer experience
What You'll Do
To succeed in this role, you should be driven to solve challenging problems and have a bias toward action in the face of change. You will be empowered to make a real impact here, with a sharp and passionate team at your back.
Who You Are
Experience: 5-7+ years in platform engineering, DevOps, or a related field with increasing responsibility
Strong track record of owning and delivering platform services that drive significant business value
Hands-on experience with building and scaling internal platforms, ideally with Kubernetes, cloud infrastructure (AWS/GCP/Azure), and CI/CD pipelines
Exceptional technical skills, with expertise in platform engineering principles, automation, and infrastructure-as-code (e.g., Terraform)
Exceptional product management capabilities, including gathering requirements, defining user stories, and managing feature prioritization
Excellent project management skills, with the ability to balance competing priorities and deliver high-impact results
Exceptional cross-functional collaboration and relationship-building skills, with a focus on alignment across engineering, leadership, and internal stakeholders
Comfortable working with SREs and other engineering functions to achieve shared reliability and operational goals
Strong communicator, capable of articulating complex ideas and decisions clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences
Product-first mindset: passionate about building internal tools and services that deliver exceptional value to their users
Forward-thinking and innovative, always seeking ways to improve platform capabilities and developer experience