Director of Engineering - Platform

Motive; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 229,000 - 290,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health benefits

401k plan

Paid time off

Disability insurance

Dental & vision

Job summary

Motive seeks a seasoned engineering leader to head Core Infrastructure and Operations Engineering. You will own the cloud platform, manage multi-team SRE/Operations/Data & AI Platform, and drive enterprise-grade reliability for mission-critical systems.

You’ll lead during critical moments and work with executives. Responsibilities include scaling the team, defining platform initiatives, and treating infrastructure as a product with clear roadmaps.

Qualifications

• 12+ years in software/infrastructure engineering.
• 5+ years leading Infra/SRE/ops orgs and managing managers.
• Degree in Computer Science or equivalent.
• Ability to collaborate cross functionally with ownership.
• Deep experience with AWS at scale (VPC, IAM, multi-account, core services, observability, cost optimization).
• High AI fluency – evaluate, integrate, and govern LLM/AI platforms for engineering and ops.
• Experience with databases and data platforms (OLTP and analytics).
• Proven record running high-reliability platforms with SLOs, incidents, postmortems.
• Clear communication skills and ability to manage escalations with CEO-level visibility.
• Track record of running infrastructure as a product (roadmaps, stakeholder comms, adoption).
• Nice to have: B2B SaaS or other high-reliability domains; leadership of global distributed teams.

Responsibilities

• Lead and scale a high-performing engineering team responsible for core platform systems used across the company.
• Define and drive multi-quarter platform initiatives that improve system reliability, and product leverage.
• Partner with product and engineering leaders to evolve the platform as a product, balancing long-term architecture with near-term business needs.
• Take ambiguous, high-impact problem areas and turn them into clear execution plans.
• Drive alignment across multiple teams on complex, interdependent systems.
• Raise the bar on engineering quality and operational excellence.

Skills

Infra/SRE leadership

Cloud architecture

AWS at scale

AI platforms governance

Databases & data platforms

Reliability engineering

Cross-functional collaboration

Executive communication

Infrastructure as a product

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science

Job description

Who we are:

Motive empowers the people who run physical operations with tools to make their work safer, more productive, and more profitable. For the first time ever, safety, operations and finance teams can manage their drivers, vehicles, equipment, and fleet related spend in a single system. Combined with industry leading AI, the Motive platform gives you complete visibility and control, and significantly reduces manual workloads by automating and simplifying tasks.

Motive serves nearly 100,000 customers – from Fortune 500 enterprises to small businesses – across a wide range of industries, including transportation and logistics, construction, energy, field service, manufacturing, agriculture, food and beverage, retail, and the public sector.

Visit gomotive.com to learn more.

About the Role:

We are looking for a seasoned engineering leader who will lead the Core Infrastructure and Operations Engineering. You will be responsible for managing and mentoring a multi-functional team across SRE, Operations, Data & AI Platform, and Database Engineering. You will own our cloud platform, run infrastructure as a product, and drive enterprise-grade reliability for mission‑critical systems. As an engineering leader you’ll be be called on to lead during critical moments and operate with executives of the company

What You’ll Do:

• Lead and scale a high-performing engineering team responsible for core platform systems used across the company
• Define and drive multi-quarter platform initiatives that improve system reliability, and product leverage
• Partner closely with product and engineering leaders to evolve the platform as a product, balancing long-term architecture with near-term business needs
• Take ambiguous, high-impact problem areas (e.g., system scalability, reliability, platform abstractions) and turn them into clear execution plans
• Drive alignment across multiple teams working on complex, interdependent systems including internal platforms, infrastructure as well as cloud governance.
• Raise the bar on engineering quality, operational excellence, and execution across the platform organization

What We’re Looking For:

• 12+ years in software/infrastructure engineering, including 5+ years leading Infra/SRE/ops orgs and managing managers with a strong sense for systems architecture.
• Degree in Computer Science or equivalent
• Ability to collaborate and work effectively cross functionally with a strong sense of ownership
• Deep experience with AWS at scale (VPC, IAM, multi‑account, core services, observability, cost optimization).
• High AI fluency – able to evaluate, integrate, and govern LLM/AI platforms (AWS Bedrock, Anthropic/Claude, OpenAI) for engineering and ops.
• Experience in interfacing with vendors, partners and cost governance
• Experience and strong understanding of databases and data platforms (OLTP and analytics), Data and ML/AI infrastructure.
• Proven record running high‑reliability platforms (SLOs, incidents, on‑call, postmortems). Experience driving processes and programs to raise the bar and engineering excellence
• Clear communication skills and ability to manage escalations with CEO-level visibility
• Track record of running infrastructure as a product (roadmaps, stakeholder comms, adoption).
• Nice to have
  • Background in B2B SaaS or other high‑reliability domains (payments, logistics, safety).
  • Leadership of global, distributed teams across time zones.

Pay Transparency

Your compensation may be based on several factors, including education, work experience, and certifications. For certain roles, total compensation may include restricted stock units. Motive offers benefits including health, pharmacy, optical and dental care benefits, paid time off, sick time off, short term and long term disability coverage, life insurance as well as 401k contribution (all benefits are subject to eligibility requirements). Learn more about our benefits by visiting Motive Perks & Benefits

The base compensation range for this role is:

$229,000 — $290,000 USD

Creating a diverse and inclusive workplace is one of Motive's core values. We are an equal opportunity employer and welcome people of different backgrounds, experiences, abilities and perspectives.

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The applicant must be authorized to receive and access those commodities and technologies controlled under U.S. Export Administration Regulations. It is Motive's policy to require that employees be authorized to receive access to Motive products and technology.

All job postings are for existing vacancies. Please note; some interviews or new-hire training sessions may be held in person at one of our global offices.