Platform Engineering Leader for Scalable AI

Harnham; Randstad; On-site; EUR 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Harnham is seeking a senior platform engineering leader to shape the technical foundation of a Benelux-scale digital platform. You will own strategy, people, and performance across core services, infra, and developer experience, guiding AI-enhanced development and scalable architecture.

Leading cross-functional teams, you will drive cloud, Kubernetes, and observability initiatives while partnering with product and growth to deliver business outcomes.

Qualifications

• Proven leadership of platform or software engineering teams at scale.
• Expert in distributed systems and backend tech like Scala, Kafka, search platforms.
• Experience with cloud infrastructure, containers, and developer tooling.
• Knowledge of Kubernetes, CI/CD, and observability.
• Budget management and cost optimisation experience.
• Ability to influence senior stakeholders and align cross-functional teams.
• Experience adopting AI-driven development practices.
• Data-driven mindset focusing on performance and reliability.

Responsibilities

• Define and lead platform engineering strategy across core services, infra, and developer experience.
• Oversee large-scale distributed systems architecture for performance and resilience.
• Set engineering standards across frontend, backend, and mobile.
• Lead infra strategy including cloud, Kubernetes, CI/CD, observability, and cost control.
• Guide adoption of event-driven patterns, CQRS, and distributed transactions.
• Build and mentor high-performing engineering leadership teams.
• Own platform financials including cloud spend, tooling, and headcount.
• Champion AI integration into engineering workflows.
• Collaborate with product, data, and growth to align tech with business goals.
• Define and track metrics for platform health and productivity.

Skills

Platform leadership

Distributed systems

Scala

Kafka

Search platforms

Cloud infrastructure

Containerisation

Kubernetes

CI/CD pipelines

Observability

Budget management

Stakeholder influence

AI adoption

Data-driven mindset

Tools

Kubernetes

CI/CD tooling

Observability tooling

Job description

Harnham is seeking a senior platform engineering leader to shape the technical foundation of a Benelux-scale digital platform. You will own strategy, people, and performance across core services, infra, and developer experience, guiding AI-enhanced development and scalable architecture.

Leading cross-functional teams, you will drive cloud, Kubernetes, and observability initiatives while partnering with product and growth to deliver business outcomes.