Head of Platform & Cloud Engineering

Rapid Ratings International Inc.; New York (NY); Hybrid; USD 145,000 - 175,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Bonus

Flexible work environment

Unlimited PTO

Job summary

RapidRatings is seeking a deeply technical senior leader to own the cloud platform, resilience, security posture, and AI infrastructure powering RapidRatings's products. The role blends systems engineering with modern SRE practice, bridging low-level cloud architecture and high-scale distributed systems.

As AI and developer self-service absorb routine toil, you will lead the SRE team, raise the technical bar for operational excellence, and build paved-road infrastructure for AI agents, copilots,

Qualifications

• Kubernetes at the core. Deep, hands-on experience running production Kubernetes (EKS) at scale — this is the backbone of our platform, not an add-on.
• AWS mastery. Deep, hands-on experience across the native AWS stack (EKS/ECS, IAM, VPC networking, CloudFront, Lambda, RDS/DynamoDB) and infrastructure as code (Terraform / OpenTofu).
• Systems engineering. Strong foundation in Linux internals, networking (TCP/IP, DNS, routing), performance tuning, and operating distributed systems at scale.
• Security & compliance. Direct experience implementing and maintaining SOC 2 and ISO 27001 technical controls within cloud-native environments.
• Software development. Proficiency in Python, Go, or Bash for building platform tooling, custom telemetry, and automated remediation.
• AI/LLM operations. Hands-on exposure to model-hosting patterns, vector databases, API gateways, and LLM orchestration infrastructure.
• Leadership & mentorship. Track record of managing distributed SRE/infrastructure teams, including international squads, while remaining directly involved in architectural design.

Responsibilities

• Own the cloud platform, resilience, security posture, and AI infrastructure powering RapidRatings's products.
• Lead the SRE function to establish telemetry, SLO frameworks, and rigorous root-cause analysis through blameless post-incident reviews.
• Drive self-healing automation that minimises operational overhead and mean-time-to-recovery.
• Design self-service infrastructure patterns so engineering squads ship securely and without friction, while continuously driving cloud cost optimization.
• Oversee AI agents, copilots, and Platform Model Context Protocols (MCPs) infrastructure.

Skills

Kubernetes

AWS

Linux systems

Security controls

Python

Go

AI/LLM ops

Leadership

Tools

Terraform

OpenTofu

Job description

Team: Platform & Cloud Engineering

Manages: SRE team

Location: Greater NYC or Boston Area - Hybrid: 3 days per week in the NYC or Quincy office

About RapidRatings

RapidRatings is a financial technology company on a mission to make the global economy more transparent and resilient. We provide quantitative financial health intelligence that helps enterprises understand the true condition of their suppliers and business partners, enabling smarter risk decisions across complex, global supply chains.

Role Overview

We are hiring a deeply technical senior leader to own the cloud platform, resilience, security posture, and AI infrastructure powering RapidRatings's products. The role blends deep systems engineering with modern SRE practice, bridging low-level cloud architecture, high-scale distributed systems, and platform engineering. As AI and developer self-service absorb routine pipeline toil, you will raise the technical bar for operational excellence, lead our SRE team, and build the paved-road infrastructure our AI systems, agents, and product squads run on.

What You'll Own

• AWS architecture & distributed systems. Architect high-availability, multi-region AWS infrastructure optimized for scale, latency, resilience, and structural reliability.
• Reliability & operational excellence. Lead the SRE function to establish robust telemetry, SLO frameworks, and rigorous root-cause analysis through blameless post-incident reviews. Drive self-healing automation that minimises operational overhead and mean-time-to-recovery.
• AI infrastructure. Build and operate the model-serving layer, routing pipelines, cost attribution, and governance frameworks for our AI agents, copilots, and Platform Model Context Protocols (MCPs).
• Security & compliance posture. Own the platform's threat detection and defense. Embed SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 controls directly into infrastructure code and automated guardrails.
• Paved-road platform & FinOps. Design self-service infrastructure patterns so engineering squads ship securely and without friction, while continuously driving cloud cost optimization.

What This Role Is Not

This is not pipeline maintenance. Product developers own their own build, test, and deployment workflows, using AI tooling on top of the paved road you provide. You build the foundational platform and guardrails, not application-level scripts. We're hiring for the leverage, not the toil.

Qualifications & Technical Bar

• Kubernetes at the core. Deep, hands-on experience running production Kubernetes (EKS) at scale — this is the backbone of our platform, not an add-on.
• AWS mastery. Deep, hands-on experience across the native AWS stack (EKS/ECS, IAM, VPC networking, CloudFront, Lambda, RDS/DynamoDB) and infrastructure as code (Terraform / OpenTofu).
• Systems engineering. Strong foundation in Linux internals, networking (TCP/IP, DNS, routing), performance tuning, and operating distributed systems at scale.
• Security & compliance. Direct experience implementing and maintaining SOC 2 and ISO 27001 technical controls within cloud-native environments.
• Software development. Proficiency in Python, Go, or Bash for building platform tooling, custom telemetry, and automated remediation.
• AI/LLM operations. Hands-on exposure to model-hosting patterns, vector databases, API gateways, and LLM orchestration infrastructure.
• Leadership & mentorship. Track record of managing distributed SRE/infrastructure teams, including international squads, while remaining directly involved in architectural design.

Who You Are

• A natural problem solver who stays curious, works logically, and digs past symptoms to root cause.
• You treat AI as a strong collaborator, building the platforms and guardrails that lift the whole engineering group rather than only your own output.
• You set technical direction and carry others with you through standards, design review, documentation, and mentoring.
• You communicate clearly across every tier, from technical specialists to the executive group, with meticulous attention to detail.
• You bring a calm, positive attitude under pressure, including during production incidents and against tight deadlines.

Role Shape

• Balance: roughly 50% technical architecture and systems design, 50% team management, SRE strategy, and mentorship. Deeply technical, still in the architecture.
• Scope: direct manager for the SRE team; the authoritative technical leader setting cloud and platform standards across all engineering squads.

*Salary*: $145,000 - $174,500

Our Values

Integrity, Innovation, Accountability, Resilience, Community.

Why join RapidRatings?

Here at RapidRatings we foster an environment where employees feel recognized for their contributions, appreciated for their individuality, and empowered to do their best. We know that bringing together employees with different backgrounds,perspectivesand experiences sparks innovation, promotes better decision making and yields the creative problem solving that’s critical to our long‑term success. We offeranattractive benefitspackagewith bonus, flexible work environment, unlimited PTO, and much more. With us, you are not just a number – we value people who are working hardand striveto make a real difference. Join our team to be a part of an industry-changing company and drive your career in the right direction.

RapidRatings International Inc. ("RapidRatings") is proud to be an equal opportunities employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. Please consult your Privacy Notice (https://www.rapidratings.com/privacy-policy) to know more about how we collect, use, and transfer the personal data of our candidates.

We wish you every success.