Engineering Lead, Platform

Avathon; Pleasanton (CA); On-site; USD 160,000 - 220,000; Full time

Job summary

Avathon is hiring an Engineering Lead to build the core Avathon platform. You will lead data ingestion, the landing zone, and the ontology/Knowledge Graph, ensuring multi-tenant SaaS across clouds and edge sites.

This is a hands-on lead role in Product Engineering where you write code, own architecture, and guide a team of engineers. You will drive data quality, create scalable APIs, and collaborate with Model Hub teams to enable safe AI agents on data.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of software engineering experience, including 3+ years leading engineers.
• Experience building data or AI platforms used by other teams (Palantir, Databricks, etc.)
• Strong backend and distributed systems skills in Python, Java, Go or Scala
• Experience with data pipelines, streaming (Kafka) and lakehouse architectures
• Experience with ontologies, knowledge graphs or graph databases is a plus
• Experience with industrial data (OPC-UA, historians) or edge deployments is a plus
• Experience with Kubernetes and cloud platforms (GCP, AWS or Azure)

Responsibilities

• Own the architecture for data ingestion and the landing zone (ADI) across edge and cloud.
• Own services that map raw data into the ontology and Knowledge Graph.
• Lead and grow a team of platform engineers; mentor, review designs and code.
• Partner with Platform product manager on roadmap, scope and release planning.
• Work with cloud operations and security on multi-tenant and edge deployments.
• Ensure quality, performance and reliability of platform services.

Skills

Backend development and distributed

Python

Java

Go

Scala

Kafka

Kubernetes

Cloud platforms

Data pipelines

Knowledge graphs

Edge deployments

Education

Bachelor's or Master's in CS/Engineering

Tools

Kubernetes

GCP

AWS

Azure

Job description

Who We Are & Why Join Us

Avathon is the leading Industrial AI autonomy platform, helping customers across heavy industries - energy, mining, manufacturing, aerospace, defense, and logistics - accelerate the journey toward autonomous operations. Our platform is built on a Computational Knowledge Graph foundation that contextualizes and connects operational data across siloed systems, bringing together time series, structured, unstructured, and machine vision data to power AI-driven applications in asset performance management, supply chain intelligence, visual AI, and global trade management. With capabilities spanning digital twins, normal behavior modeling, natural language processing, and computer vision, Avathon delivers real-time predictive intelligence and agentic decision-making at industrial scale.

Cutting-Edge AI Innovation - Join a team at the forefront of AI, developing groundbreaking solutions that shape the future. High-Growth Environment - Thrive in a fast-scaling startup where agility, collaboration, and rapid professional growth are the norm. Meaningful Impact - Work on AI-driven projects that drive real change across industries and improve lives.

Learn more at: avathon.com

We are hiring an Engineering Lead to build the core of the Avathon platform. You will lead the team responsible for the layers every application runs on: data ingestion and connectors for IT and OT systems, the landing zone and data lake, the ontology and Computational Knowledge Graph, and the services that let models and AI agents work on that data. The platform has to run as multi-tenant SaaS, in customer clouds and on air-gapped edge sites, and it has to make new customer deployments faster, not slower. This is a hands-on lead role in Product Engineering. You will write code, own the architecture, and lead a team of engineers.

You Will

Data and Ingestion

• Own the architecture for data ingestion, including Avathon Data Ingest (ADI) at the edge and reusable connectors for OT protocols (OPC-UA, DNP3, MQTT, historians) and IT systems (SAP, Oracle and others)
• Build the landing zone and Bronze/Silver/Gold processing that turns raw data into clean, governed data
• Set standards for data quality, freshness, lineage and access control across the platform

Ontology and Knowledge Graph

• Own the services that map raw data into the ontology and Computational Knowledge Graph
• Make the graph fast and reliable at industrial scale, and give applications clean APIs to query it
• Work with the Model Hub and agent teams so models and AI agents can read from and act on the graph safely

Team Leadership

• Lead and grow a team of platform engineers; set priorities, review designs and code, and mentor
• Partner with the Platform product manager on roadmap, scope and release planning
• Work with cloud operations and security on multi-tenant, single-tenant, on-premise and edge deployments
• Own quality, performance and reliability of platform services

You'll Have

• 8+ years of software engineering experience, including 3+ years leading engineers
• Built data or AI platforms used by other teams, ideally at Palantir, C3 AI, Databricks, Snowflake, Cognite or a hyperscaler data or AI team
• Strong backend and distributed systems skills in Python, Java, Go or Scala
• Experience with data pipelines, streaming (Kafka or similar), lakehouse architectures and large-scale storage
• Experience with ontologies, knowledge graphs or graph databases is a strong plus
• Experience with industrial data (OPC-UA, historians, SCADA) or edge deployments is a strong plus
• Experience with Kubernetes and cloud platforms (GCP, AWS or Azure)
• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering or a related field

Compensation

Pay Range: $160,000-$220,000 salary annually. Pay for this position is based on a number of factors including geographic location and may vary depending on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience.

Location: This role is not remote. Candidates must be based in the Bay Area, CA and are expected to report to our Pleasanton office 5 days a week.

Avathon is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, pregnancy, genetic information, disability, status as a protected veteran, or any other protected category under applicable federal, state, and local laws.

Avathon is committed to providing reasonable accommodations throughout the recruiting process. If you need a reasonable accommodation, please contact us to discuss how we can assist you.