Head of Platform Architecture - Founding Architect

TekFinder; Sydney; On-site; AUD 230,000 - 270,000; Full time

Job summary

TekFinder is assisting in identifying a Head of Platforms / Founding Architect for a data centre focused AI cloud venture in Sydney. The role involves shaping the platform architecture, defining the engineering roadmap and working closely with hardware vendors and data centre operators.

The candidate will lead the initial build and later scale an internal infra and DevOps team, with a startup vibe and ambitious growth trajectory. This is a senior founding role reporting to the CEO and Board.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in tech leadership (VP Eng, Head of Infra or CTO level) from the networking world with deep cloud and production Kubernetes experience.
• Experience with infrastructure buildouts and data centre partnerships.
• HPC or GPU cluster experience (NVIDIA, InfiniBand, Lustre/Ceph) preferred.
• Proven track record of strategic tech roadmap and architecture ownership.
• Experience with large-scale, high-throughput workloads.

Responsibilities

• Own tech strategy, architecture and the engineering roadmap.
• Lead large-scale Kubernetes for distributed, high-throughput workloads.
• Define vendor, co-location and hardware procurement strategy.
• Oversee CapEx/OpEx, GPU utilisation and platform uptime.
• Hire and scale a top-tier infra and DevOps team.

Skills

Leadership/Strategy

Cloud computing

Infrastructure planning

Hiring & scaling

Stakeholder management

Tools

Kubernetes

NVIDIA GPUs

InfiniBand

Lustre

Ceph

Job description

Hiring; Head of Platforms / Founding Architect - Data Centre space - Sydney - circa $250k base neg.

We’ve just kicked off a Head of Platform search with a new client of ours.

This is a billion dollar+ Australian business who have just created a new tech company - an AI-focused cloud business building the kind of high-performance compute that the next wave of AI products will run on.

We are looking to make the companies first tech hire - someone to get the platform architected, designed and live fast, working with hardware vendors, data centre operators and cloud providers. Over time, bring it in-house and build their own infrastructure and engineering team from the ground up.

Think of it like a founding engineer for the data centre space, with the support of the wider business around you. Very much startup vibes and it is going to be a bit nuts, 2bh.

We’re looking for someone who’s spent 10+ years in tech leadership (VP Eng, Head of Infra or CTO level) from the networking world with deep cloud and production Kubernetes experience, plus a track record of infrastructure buildouts and data centre partnerships.

HPC or GPU cluster exp (NVIDIA, InfiniBand, Lustre/Ceph) is ideally needed also.

Reporting to the CEO and Board, you’ll own:

• Tech strategy, architecture and the engineering roadmap
• Large-scale Kubernetes for distributed, high-throughput workloads
• Vendor, co-location and hardware procurement strategy
• CapEx/OpEx, GPU utilisation and platform uptime
• Hiring and scaling a top-tier infra and DevOps team

This is a genuine greenfield build that you’ll own shape the platform and the team. I can confidently say this is a great opportunity for someone who wants to go in and create/build something that has huge potential.