Senior Platform Engineer - People Manager

SMC Squared; Hyderabad; Hybrid; INR 4,000,000 - 7,500,000; Full time

Job summary

SMC Squared is seeking a Senior Platform Engineer to lead architecture and hands-on development of mission-critical platform systems. You will mentor a team, set engineering standards, and drive scalable, secure solutions across India and the United States.

The role combines strategic platform initiatives with people leadership, fostering accountability, innovation, and collaboration in a hybrid Hyderabad-based environment.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of software engineering with platform engineering or enterprise architecture.
• 2+ years in people management, team lead, or engineering leadership.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field.
• Experience designing enterprise-scale platform systems and cloud-based solutions.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement mission-critical platform features and foundational systems.
• Shape architecture through specifications, reviews, and hands-on code.
• Lead platform modernization and large-scale refactoring initiatives.
• Mentor engineers and drive technical excellence across teams.
• Establish API governance, standards, and scalable data platforms.
• Collaborate with Product and stakeholders to align team goals with business needs.

Skills

Platform engineering

Technical leadership

Mentoring

Java

Spring Boot

REST APIs

Distributed systems

DevOps practices

CI/CD

Observability

Stakeholder management

Cross-functional collaboration

Global delivery

Education

Bachelor's in CS

Tools

Azure API Management

Azure Service Bus

Azure Event Grid

SQL Server

PostgreSQL

Redis

Snowflake

Kubernetes

Terraform

Job description

We are seeking a Senior Platform Engineer with strong technical leadership and people management experience to lead the design and implementation of mission-critical platform systems, APIs, and foundational architecture. This role combines hands‑on platform engineering expertise with the responsibility of leading, mentoring, and developing a team of engineers.

You will drive architectural decisions, establish engineering standards, foster a culture of technical excellence, and support career growth for engineers while delivering scalable, secure, and reliable platform solutions. This role is ideal for a technically strong leader who enjoys balancing strategic engineering initiatives with team leadership responsibilities.

This role is based in Hyderabad and follows a hybrid work model. You will collaborate with colleagues across India and the United States, with reasonable working-hour overlap when needed for team ceremonies, planning, and delivery. This is an excellent opportunity to help build a growing Global Capability Center while shaping an engineering culture rooted in accountability, innovation, and collaboration.

Key Responsibilities

Platform Architecture & Design

• Design and implement mission‑critical platform features and foundational systems.

• Shape platform architecture through written specifications, architectural reviews, and hands‑on code implementation.

• Build and maintain frameworks that accelerate software delivery for application teams.

• Drive AssetMark toward target‑state platform architecture through strategic technology decisions.

• Author technical design documents and architecture proposals for complex platform capabilities.

Advanced Platform Development

• Create enterprise‑scale solutions for data management, API governance, and service integration.

• Lead platform modernization and large‑scale refactoring initiatives.

• Build canonical source‑of‑truth data systems with governance and compliance controls.

• Design standardized integration patterns for services, applications, and event‑driven workflows.

• Establish and enforce API design principles, versioning standards, and governance frameworks.

• Drive scalability, resiliency, observability, and performance optimization initiatives.

People Leadership & Team Management

• Lead, coach, and mentor a team of engineers, fostering technical excellence and career growth.

• Conduct regular one‑on‑one meetings, performance discussions, and development planning.

• Support hiring activities including interview participation, candidate evaluation, and onboarding.

• Create succession plans and identify growth opportunities for team members.

• Promote a high‑performing, collaborative, and inclusive engineering culture.

• Provide clear technical direction, prioritize work effectively, and remove delivery impediments.

• Partner with Product, Engineering Managers, Architects, and stakeholders to align team objectives with business goals.

• Manage resource planning, workload balancing, and sprint capacity planning.

• Drive employee engagement, retention initiatives, and recognition programs within the engineering team.

Technical Leadership & Engineering Excellence

• Improve platform engineering practices across multiple teams.

• Establish coding standards, review practices, and engineering quality metrics.

• Mentor engineers on platform development, architecture, design patterns, and best practices.

• Drive adoption of secure coding, data privacy, cloud‑native development, and operational excellence.

• Balance innovation, technical debt reduction, and business priorities.

• Coordinate platform initiatives across multiple engineering teams and resolve complex technical dependencies.

Enterprise & Compliance

• Ensure platform solutions meet security, compliance, regulatory, and audit requirements.

• Design systems capable of supporting enterprise‑scale growth.

• Partner with enterprise architecture, cybersecurity, and governance teams.

• Support technology modernization initiatives and cloud transformation programs.

• Ensure adherence to data governance and master data management principles.

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities

• Deep expertise in platform engineering, API design, and service‑oriented architectures.

• Strong experience with Java, Spring Boot, Liquibase, SQL Server or PostgreSQL, REST APIs with JSON payloads.

• Experience with Azure technologies such as API Management, Azure Service Bus, Azure Event Grid, and cloud‑native services.

• Experience with Redis, Snowflake, and enterprise data platforms is preferred.

• Advanced knowledge of microservices, distributed systems, event‑driven architecture, and containerized deployments.

• Strong understanding of DevOps practices, CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure‑as‑code, and platform observability.

• Proven success in managing and mentoring engineering teams while remaining technically hands‑on.

• Strong communication, stakeholder management, and cross‑functional collaboration skills.

• Experience driving architectural decisions and influencing technology strategy.

• Ability to work effectively within a globally distributed organization.

Qualifications & Experience

• Bachelors degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical field.

• 8+ years of software engineering experience, with significant experience in platform engineering, backend systems, or enterprise architecture.

• 2+ years of people management, team lead, or engineering leadership experience.

• Experience designing and implementing enterprise‑scale platform systems and cloud‑based solutions.

• Track record of successfully leading technical initiatives and developing engineering talent.

• Experience with regulated industries, preferably financial services, fintech, banking, or wealth management.

• Strong background in API governance, enterprise integration, data architecture, and platform modernization.