Senior Platform Engineer

Collectors Universe, Inc.; Jersey City (NJ); Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health Insurance

401(K) Matching Plan

Vacation

Holiday Pay

Employee Discounts

Flexible Hours

Fun Working Environment

Additional Resources

Job summary

Collectors Universe, Inc. is seeking a Senior Platform Engineer to design, build, and operate internal platforms used by engineers daily. You will develop automation, self-service tooling, and AI-enabled capabilities to streamline workflows, while owning end-to-end platform initiatives from discovery to adoption.

You will strengthen cloud foundations, drive reliability, and collaborate with product teams to deliver measurable outcomes in a fast-paced environment.

Qualifications

• 5+ years building, shipping, and operating production software in platform or infra roles.
• Strong generalist with backend, automation, infra, and internal tooling experience.
• Proficient in Python or TypeScript and cloud infra (AWS), containers, and CI/CD.

Responsibilities

• Build, run, and improve internal platforms used by engineers daily.
• Develop automation and self-service tooling that scales beyond single use cases.
• Prototype and productionize AI-assisted capabilities in engineering workflows.
• Own platform problems from discovery to deployment and adoption.
• Strengthen cloud and container foundations for reliability and cost efficiency.
• Instrument platforms with telemetry and partner with product teams.
• Write design documents and runbooks; collaborate across teams.

Skills

Platform engineering

Backend services

Automation pipelines

AI integration

Cloud infrastructure

Kubernetes

Observability

Tools

AWS

Kubernetes

CI/CD

Infrastructure-as-code

Terraform

Job description

Collectors is the leading creator of innovative technology that provides value-added services for collectors worldwide. We grade, authenticate, vault, and sell millions of record-setting collectibles, all while modernizing and digitalizing the process to further our mission of helping collectors pursue their passions. We’re always on the lookout for talented people to join our growing team. Our services span collectible trading cards, autographs, comic books, coins, video games, event tickets, and memorabilia. Our subsidiaries include PSA, PCGS, Beckett, SGC, and Card Ladder. Since our founding in 1986, we have graded and authenticated millions of items. We employ more than 3000 people across our headquarters in Santa Ana, California and offices in New Jersey, Texas, Florida, Japan, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Canada, Mexico, Germany, the UK, and France.

As part of our interview process, we request that candidates have their cameras on during video interviews. This helps foster meaningful conversation and allows us to create an experience that closely resembles our standard working environment. Certain interview steps may take place by phone. For remote roles, and at our discretion, candidates may be asked to participate in an on-site interview as part of the final stages of the process. We understand there may be occasional circumstances requiring accommodation and are happy to discuss them as needed. Your recruiter will be able to clarify expectations and answer any questions you have.

Senior Platform Engineer

• Build the paved path. Design, build, and operate the internal platforms that engineers use every day - CI/CD pipelines, developer environments, deployment workflows, and shared services - and continuously reduce the friction between "code written" and "value shipped."
• Create custom tooling that multiplies the team. Identify repetitive, error-prone, or slow engineering workflows and replace them with automation and self-service tools that generalize beyond a single use case.
• Bring AI into the engineering workflow. Prototype and productionize AI-assisted capabilities - from LLM-powered code modification and migration automation to agentic workflows for operational tasks - treating them as real software systems with evaluation, observability, and guardrails, not just prompts.
• Own problems end-to-end in ambiguous spaces. Take loosely defined, high-priority platform challenges from discovery through design, implementation, rollout, and adoption, making pragmatic build-vs-buy and speed-vs-durability tradeoffs along the way.
• Strengthen core infrastructure. Contribute to our cloud and container foundations (Kubernetes, infrastructure-as-code, networking, observability), improving the reliability, scalability, and cost-efficiency of the systems other teams build on.
• Drive adoption with data. Instrument the platforms you build, define success metrics, and use telemetry and direct partnership with product teams to guide what gets built next.
• Communicate and collaborate. Write clear design documents and tradeoff analyses, embed with partner teams to understand their pain points, and influence engineering practices across the organization without relying on formal authority.

Remote or hybrid candidates will also be considered. We believe that there is significant value in in-person collaboration. If you live within a 1 hour commuting distance to one of our offices, you will be required to be onsite most of the time.

Who You Are

Must Have

• An experienced engineer with 5+ years building, shipping, and operating production software, ideally with meaningful time spent in platform, infrastructure, developer experience, or similarly leverage-oriented roles.
• A strong software generalist with systems knowledge. You're comfortable moving across backend services, automation pipelines, infrastructure, and internal tools, and you know when to go deep.
• Fluent in at least one modern language commonly used for platform work (such as Python or TypeScript) and experienced with cloud infrastructure (AWS preferred), containers and Kubernetes, infrastructure-as-code, and modern CI/CD systems.
• A hands-on builder with AI. You've integrated LLMs or agent-based automation into real engineering workflows - shipping working tools, not just experiments - and you stay current on where the technology is heading.
• Energized by ambiguity. You can take a fuzzy problem statement, break it down, propose a plan, and execute - course-correcting quickly as you learn.
• Product-minded about internal customers. You treat fellow engineers as users, care about the usability of what you ship, and measure success by adoption and outcomes rather than output.
• An excellent communicator. Your design docs, runbooks, and postmortems are clear, and you build trust with partner teams through consistent, low-drama delivery.
• Pragmatic about operations. You take ownership from design through deployment and on-call, and you leave systems better documented and more reliable than you found them.

Nice to Have

• Experience with developer portals, service catalogs, or fleet/dependency management systems.
• Experience running large-scale code migration or modernization efforts.
• Familiarity with evaluation and observability practices for AI-powered systems.

Salary Range: The salary range for this position is $140,000-$200,000. Actual compensation on this range varies based on a variety of non-discriminatory factors, including location, job level, experience, and skill set. This role may be eligible for bonuses, commissions, or other forms of compensation, please ask your recruiter for details.

Reasons To Join Us

• Health Insurance: All full-time employees are eligible to enroll in Medical, Dental, and Vision.
• Full-time employees are eligible for fertility, commuter, and educational assistance benefits.
• 401(K) Matching Plan: We are proud to offer a competitive 401k matching plan to our employees to support their future financial goals.
• Vacation: All salaried employees are eligible for flexible time-off.
• Holiday Pay: All regular, full-time employees are eligible for ten company paid holidays.
• Employee Discounts: Employees receive discounts on select grading services for approved submissions.
• Flexible Hours: Many of our teams offer flexible schedules with varying shifts and will work with you to accommodate your needs.
• Fun Working Environment: Our team members are invited to participate in celebrations, holiday events, and team building activities.
• Additional Resources: Collectors Tech Blog, PSA.

Qualified applications with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers and the California Fair Chance Act.

Collectors uses e-Verify to validate your ability to work legally in the United States.

We are aware that there are instances where individuals are receiving job offers that fraudulently allege to be from Collectors or one of our business units. This type of fraud can be carried out through false websites, through fake e-mails claiming to be from the company or through social media. We never ask for personal information such as your bank account, Social Security numbers or National IDs, nor do we send or request payments for the purchase of business-related equipment. If you suspect fraud, please reach out to [e-mail].

We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, national origin, gender, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital or parental status, disability, veteran status, or other class protected by applicable law.

We believe that a team that represents a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills will better service the diverse community of collectors we support.

If you require an accommodation to apply or interview with us due to a disability or special need, please email [e-mail]. U.S. residents: for disclosures relating to personal information we collect during the employment application and recruitment process, please see our Privacy Notice for U.S. Applicants.