Founding Staff Platform Engineer

Clutch; Toronto; On-site; CAD 200,000 - 230,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health and dental benefits

Autonomy and ownership

Start day 1 benefits

Job summary

Clutch is redefining how people buy, sell, and own cars in Canada. We are building a dedicated Staff Platform Engineer role to define and own the internal platform that enables every engineer to move faster, ship safer, and operate at scale.

You’ll partner with engineering leadership to set platform strategy, establish standards, and delivery self-service tooling, infrastructure, and workflows that scale with the company.

Qualifications

• 8+ years building cloud infrastructure, platform engineering, DevOps, or developer tooling at scale.
• Experience operating as a Staff Engineer, Technical Lead, or senior IC driving technical strategy across multiple teams.
• Deep experience with AWS, Terraform, Docker, and modern CI/CD platforms.
• Strong software engineering mindset with tooling in Python, Go, JavaScript, or similar languages.
• Experience designing scalable developer platforms, deployment systems, or engineering enablement tooling.
• Proven ability to identify organization-wide technical problems and build long-term solutions.
• Excellent written communication and documentation skills with the ability to influence engineers and technical leadership.
• Comfortable working in a fast-moving startup environment with significant ownership and ambiguity.

Responsibilities

• Define and execute Clutch's Platform Engineering strategy.
• Build and evolve our Internal Developer Platform to improve developer productivity through self-service tooling.
• Own the architecture and evolution of our CI/CD platform and deployment workflows.
• Design and scale cloud infrastructure using AWS, Terraform, and GitHub Actions.
• Improve developer velocity through automation, platform tooling, and infrastructure improvements.
• Define platform standards and reusable infrastructure patterns across the organization.

Skills

Cloud infrastructure

Platform engineering

AWS

Terraform

Docker

CI/CD platforms

Python/Go/JS

Technical leadership

Documentation/communication

Tools

Terraform

Docker

GitHub Actions

Job description

About Clutch:

We’re on a mission to reinvent the way people buy, sell, and own cars. Are you game?

Clutch is Canada’s largest online used car retailer, delivering a seamless, hassle-free car-buying experience to drivers everywhere. Customers can browse hundreds of cars from the comfort of their home, get the right one delivered to their door, and enjoy peace of mind with our 10-Day Money-Back Guarantee... and that’s just the beginning.

Named five years in a row to the Globe & Mail’s list of the Top Growing Companies in Canada and also awarded spots on Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50 and Fast 500 lists, we’re looking to add curious, hard-working, and driven individuals to our growing team.

Headquartered in Toronto, Clutch was founded in 2017 and currently services Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, British Columbia, and Prince Edward Island. Clutch is backed by a number of world-class investors, including D1 Capital, Canaan, Real Ventures, BrandProject, and Upper90. To learn more, visit clutch.ca.

About the Role

Platform Engineering is becoming a strategic investment at Clutch, and we're looking for our first dedicated Staff Platform Engineer to help define what that looks like.

This isn't about maintaining infrastructure, it's about building the internal platform that enables every engineer at Clutch to move faster, ship safer, and operate at scale.

You'll partner closely with engineering leadership to define our platform strategy, establish engineering standards, and build the self-service tooling, infrastructure, and developer workflows that become the foundation for how engineering operates. From CI/CD and cloud infrastructure to developer experience, observability, and internal tooling, you'll own the technical direction of the platform and have the autonomy to build it the right way.

We're looking for someone who enjoys solving organization-wide engineering problems, thinks in systems rather than individual services, and wants to create leverage for dozens of engineers rather than shipping features for one product team.

This is a rare opportunity to build Platform Engineering from the ground up, defining the strategy, establishing the function, and growing the team as Clutch continues to scale.

What you’ll do:

• Define and execute Clutch's Platform Engineering strategy.
• Build and evolve our Internal Developer Platform to improve developer productivity through self-service tooling.
• Own the architecture and evolution of our CI/CD platform and deployment workflows.
• Design and scale cloud infrastructure using AWS, Terraform, and GitHub Actions.
• Improve developer velocity through automation, platform tooling, and infrastructure improvements.
• Define platform standards and reusable infrastructure patterns that improve reliability, observability, security, and operational excellence across the organization.

What we’re looking for:

• 8+ years building cloud infrastructure, platform engineering, DevOps, or developer tooling at scale.
• Experience operating as a Staff Engineer, Technical Lead, or senior individual contributor driving technical strategy across multiple teams.
• Deep experience with AWS, Terraform, Docker, and modern CI/CD platforms.
• Strong software engineering mindset with experience building tooling in Python, Go, JavaScript, or similar languages.
• Experience designing scalable developer platforms, deployment systems, or engineering enablement tooling.
• Proven ability to identify organization-wide technical problems and build long-term solutions rather than short-term fixes.
• Excellent written communication and documentation skills with the ability to influence engineers and technical leadership.
• Comfortable working in a fast-moving startup environment with significant ownership and ambiguity.

Nice to Have

• Experience with feature flagging platforms
• Experience with Monorepo tooling
• Experience designing an Internal Developer Platform

Why you’ll love it at Clutch:

• Autonomy & ownership – opportunity to build your process and influence the company workforce and at every level.
• Help shape the future of car buying and selling in Canada by leading a critical part of our customer experience.
• We are dedicated to attracting and retaining top talent with top-of-market compensation packages.
• Above market health & dental benefits.

Employment Type:

• New, Permanent Full-Time
• Hybrid, Downtown Toronto three days a week

Compensation & Benefits:

• Salary range: $200,000+ per annum
• Benefits: Comprehensive benefits plans include healthcare, dental care, vision care, prescriptions, life insurance and dependent coverage; start from day 1. (Applicable for Permanent Full-Time)
• Pay decisions reflect objective criteria: skills, performance, market benchmarking, responsibilities and working conditions.

Clutch is committed to fostering an inclusive workplace where all individuals have an opportunity to succeed. If you require accommodation at any stage of the interview process, please email [e-mail].