Sr Staff Platform Engineer / Team Lead

inari; Cambridge (MA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Inari seeks a Platform Architect to lead software systems and data/AI platform initiatives. You will own architecture for core pipelines, auth, CI/CD, and deployment frameworks, enabling internal apps and AI workflows.

You will collaborate with Data, AI and Engineering teams, shape standards, and mentor engineers. Location options include Cambridge, MA or West Lafayette, IN, with a hybrid work approach. This role requires hands-on capability and strong communication.

Qualifications

• 7+ years in software or platform engineering, data, or AI-related roles.
• Strong background designing and building platform or systems architecture.
• Hands-on with Python and cloud-based infrastructure (AWS).
• Experience with APIs, data pipelines, and orchestration tools.
• Ability to influence technical direction beyond your team.
• Excellent communication and collaboration across disciplines.

Responsibilities

• Lead architecture and development of platform components, pipelines, and services.
• Build core platform foundations: authentication, CI/CD, IaC, deployment frameworks.
• Enable internal apps, workflows, APIs, and shared services on the platform.
• Develop AI-enabled infrastructure and agentic workflows for scientific computing.
• Drive cross-team alignment across AWS, Kubernetes/EKS, Airflow, Databricks, and SageMaker.
• Provide technical leadership, set standards, and guide platform strategy.
• Partner with AI & Data Engineering leadership to set priorities and direction.

Skills

Platform architecture

Python

AWS

Kubernetes

APIs

Data pipelines

Leadership

Communication

Tools

Airflow

Databricks

SageMaker

EKS

Quilt

MLflow

Job description

About Inari...

Inari is the SEEDesign™ company. We embrace the diversity and complexity of nature in every aspect of our business to drive innovation - to push the boundaries of what is possible. Through our unrivaled technology platform, Inari uses predictive design and advanced multiplex gene editing to develop step-change products. We are taking a nature positive approach to unlock the full potential of seeds that will transform the food system. The results will lead to more productive acres delivering value creation for farmers and a more sustainable future for our planet.

Our success is dependent on great minds, collaborating to generate bright ideas and deliver exceptional outcomes.

We have 200 employees, with research sites in Cambridge, MA (USA) and Ghent (Belgium), as well as a product development site in West Lafayette, IN (USA). We've deliberately built a team that brings diversity of thought to all aspects of our business, to generate new ideas, approaches, and ways of operating. And we've intentionally combined experience with potential, bringing agriculture industry experts with the desire to innovate together with bright minds from academia, human therapeutics, software, and consulting. If you want to be part of a diverse and inclusive team developing unique solutions to feed the world while protecting our planet's natural resources, we'd love to hear from you!

About the role...

The Opportunity

Inari is transforming agriculture through predictive design and AI - and the platform powering that mission matters enormously. We're looking for a platform architect who will be a key technical leader and force multiplier on our Data, AI, and Engineering team.

This role is for someone who loves the architecture whiteboard, the messy integration problem, the well-designed API, and the occasional "why is this thing broken in prod?" mystery. You'll drive platform architecture to help build and scale the technical foundation that powers internal applications, tools, data workflows, AI systems that our scientists and engineers rely on every day to advance our predictive design engine and product pipelines.

You'll be hands‑on enough to understand how things really work, senior enough to shape the bigger picture, and collaborative enough to bring teams along with you. This role may be located in Cambridge, MA or West Lafayette, IN.

What You'll Do

Lead the architecture and development of key software systems, platform components, pipelines, and services within Inari's Data & AI Platform.

Build and mature core platform foundations, including authentication and authorization patterns, CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure as code, and reusable deployment frameworks.

Enable teams to host internal applications, run workflows, expose APIs, use shared services, and build on a stronger engineering platform.

Build and support infrastructure for modern AI-enabled systems, including agentic workflows, MCPs, model-adjacent services, and internal AI platform capabilities.

Drive tighter integration across software engineering, data engineering, AI/ML, and scientific computing platforms, shaping a cohesive architecture across AWS, Kubernetes/EKS, Airflow, Databricks, SageMaker, Quilt/S3, Python, and related services.

Serve as a senior technical voice across engineering, helping drive architecture decisions, technical standards, platform strategy, and platform-first thinking.

Partner closely with the Director of AI & Data Engineering to set technical direction, identify platform priorities, and represent engineering platform needs in leadership discussions.

Act as the technical lead for a small, high-impact team of engineers, setting technical direction, reviewing designs and code, and raising the bar on engineering practice.

What You'll Bring

• 7+ years of experience in software engineering, platform engineering, systems engineering, data engineering, or related technical roles.


• 2 + years of experience in technical leadership or leading engineering projects.


• Strong hands‑on experience designing and building platform or systems architecture, especially in data, AI, or scientific computing environments.


• Proficiency in Python and practical experience with AWS, Kubernetes, serverless architecture, and container‑based infrastructure.


• Experience building and integrating complex systems such as APIs, orchestration frameworks, data pipelines, workflow platforms, internal tools, or AI/ML infrastructure.


• Ability to influence technical direction beyond your immediate team.


• Clear communication skills, with the ability to translate technical tradeoffs for engineering, product, science, and leadership audiences.


• A bias toward building practical, reusable, scalable systems that teams can actually use and operate.

Great to h ave

• Experience with MCPs or similar AI agent integration frameworks.


• Familiarity with Airflow, Databricks, SageMaker, EKS, Quilt, MLflow, or related data and AI platform tooling.


• Experi