Engineering Leader, Platform Engineering

ClassDojo; United States; On-site; USD 204,000 - 280,000; Full time

Job summary

ClassDojo is hiring an Engineering Leader to own the Platform engineering org end-to-end for infrastructure, data, developer experience, and AI tooling. You will manage the engineering managers across these teams and perform the EM role when needed, partnering with product engineering as customers.

You'll set platform direction, balance build-vs-buy decisions, and shape architecture across the org. A high-visibility, strategic leadership role in a distributed company.

Qualifications

• 2+ years managing managers with direct reports who are managers.
• 10+ years total in technical roles with a strong IC foundation.
• Owned a platform, infrastructure, data, or developer-productivity area and delivered measurable outcomes.
• Built/evolved platform engineering practices across multiple teams and earned adoption.
• Hired, developed, and managed engineering managers.
• Comfortable making build-vs-buy and architecture-level trade-offs.
• Embrace candor over harmony and give hard messages when needed.
• Use LLM-based tools daily and push teams to adopt them.
• Excellent written communicator with ability to articulate strategy and trade-offs in writing.

Responsibilities

• Lead a multi-team Platform org.
• Develop the engineering managers reporting to you.
• Run platform towards the long term and build adoption across teams.
• Drive technical excellence across infrastructure, data, DevEx, and AI tooling.
• Partner cross-functionally to co-own the platform roadmap and quality bar.

Skills

People management

Platform engineering

AI tooling

Architecture decisions

Cross-functional leadership

Technical writing

Strategic planning

Communication

Mentoring managers

Job description

ClassDojo’s goal is to give every child on Earth an education they love.

We started by building a communication network that connects teachers, children, and families. Today, ClassDojo is used in the vast majority of U.S. schools and reaches tens of millions of children and families globally. We’re now expanding beyond communication into building the best possible learning experiences for kids everywhere.

We’re a small, high-talent-density team with experience from leading technology companies. We value ownership, speed, and thoughtful decision-making, and we aim to create an environment where people can do the best work of their careers.

We’re hiring an Engineering Leader to own ClassDojo’s Platform engineering org end-to-end for infrastructure, data, developer experience, and AI tooling.

As the Engineering Lead for Platform, you’ll manage the engineering managers across these teams as well as perform the EM role for teams when needed. You’ll work with our product engineering areas as your customers, set platform engineering practices and quality, and make the build-vs-buy and architecture trade-offs that shape how every engineer at ClassDojo ships.

This is a manager-of-managers role with real architectural and strategic ownership. You’ll have 2 to 4 engineering managers reporting in, and your work multiplies across the entire engineering org. You will be expected to set direction, not just execute on it.

What You’ll Do

Lead a multi-team Platform org

• Own Platform’s company-level objectives and the engineering plan that delivers them.

• Translate company priorities and product-engineering needs into a platform roadmap, in a way that flows both up and down.

• Be responsible for build-vs-buy and architecture-level trade-offs across infrastructure, data, developer experience, and AI tooling; own the technical roadmap and how it balances against the needs of your customers.

• Represent Platform and collaborate with cross-functional leadership partners and in engineering-wide leadership conversations.

Develop the engineering managers reporting to you

• Coach EMs to a higher bar with clear feedback, growth plans, and direct support.

• Drive AI-native development in line with ClassDojo’s engineering practices (flow-based delivery, vertical slicing, WIP discipline, Definition of Done, observability)

• Address performance issues early and clearly; develop managers out of “fine” performance into great performance.

• Be directive when our values, quality bar, or ways of working are at stake.

Run platform towards the long term

• Treat the product engineering areas as customers: understand their needs, measure adoption and satisfaction, and prioritize accordingly.

• Build paved roads and golden paths that teams want to use; earn adoption rather than mandating it.

• Take accountability for SLAs/SLOs and incident response across the platform surface.

• Make tech-debt and reliability trade-offs on purpose, not by accident.

Drive technical excellence across the platform

• Support and drive architecture and systems design decisions across infrastructure, data, DevEx, and AI tooling; ensure systems are reliable, maintainable, and operationally ready.

• Make build-vs-buy calls deliberately; avoid both not-invented-here and unmanaged sprawl.

Partner cross-functionally

• Co-own the platform roadmap and quality bar with the product engineering leads who depend on you.

• Partner with Security, Ops, Data, and other functions as the platform requires.

• Build pragmatic interim solutions that work today and migrate cleanly as platform capabilities mature.

You Will Be a Match If You…

• 2+ years managing managers, with direct reports who were themselves people managers.

• 10+ years total in technical roles, with a strong individual-contributor era you can still draw on.

• Have owned a platform, infrastructure, data, or developer-productivity area and delivered a measurable outcome (throughput, reliability, cost, or operational safety).

• Have built or evolved platform engineering practices across multiple teams, not just within one, and earned adoption.

• Have hired, developed, and managed engineering managers.

• Comfortable making and defending build-vs-buy and architecture-level trade-offs across the platform surface; can still reason about code with taste.

• Embrace Candor > Harmony: give the hard message early, comfortable with disagreement.

• Use LLM-based tools daily and push your teams to adopt them.

• Are an excellent written communicator; can articulate strategy and trade-offs clearly in writing.

Nice to Have

• Experience running infrastructure, data, DevEx, or AI platforms at meaningful scale.

• Has built developer platforms that internal engineers genuinely adopted (paved roads, golden paths, internal developer platforms).

• Has used AI-native workflows to materially change how a team designs, ships, and operates, and/or has built AI tooling/platform for other engineers (not just personal use).

• Experience leading a remote-first, distributed engineering team.

• Brings a network of high-quality platform/infrastructure engineering talent.

[1] Some more context:

• How ClassDojo Connects Parents, Students, and Teachers

• “Whats New on ClassDojo 2023”

• TechCrunch Article: Second Act comes with First Profits

We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status. In accordance with the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records. We are happy to accommodate any disabilities or special needs. We are a distributed company, so we hire regardless of location, as long as you are willing to have significant hours overlap with one of the Americas time zones.

ClassDojo takes a number of factors into consideration when determining compensation, including geographic location, experience, and skillset. Salary ranges (United States):

• CA, WA, NY, NJ, CT states: $240,000 to $280,000 (USD)

• All other states in the US: $204,000 to $238,000 (USD)

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