Staff Cloud Platform Engineer

BlackLine Systems, Inc.; Pleasanton (CA); On-site; USD 193,000 - 242,000; Full time

Job summary

BlackLine is seeking a Staff Cloud Platform Engineer to lead design, automation, and operational excellence of the service backbone powering our SaaS products.

You will architect Kubernetes-native systems, drive event-driven architectures with Kafka and Pub/Sub, and champion a security-first approach across the platform. Mentorship and cross-team collaboration are key parts of the role.

Qualifications

• 7–10+ years in engineering, platform, or SRE roles.
• Expert in at least one: Rust, C#, Python, Go, Java for platform engineering.
• Experience with container-targeted development: Docker, Kubernetes, Swarm, App Engine.
• Hands-on with GCP/AWS in production at scale; core services like BigQuery, Pub/Sub.
• Experience designing and operating event-driven platforms (Kafka, Airflow, etc.).

Responsibilities

• Serve as technical lead for engineering platform service architecture and scalable cloud-native infra.
• Architect and develop Kubernetes-native systems and serverless sequences.
• Design and operate event-driven systems using Kafka and Pub/Sub.
• Champion security-first platform design across networking, containers, and monitoring.
• Establish observability with dashboards, sensors, and alerts for health and SLOs.
• Own CI/CD strategy and collaborate with teams on IaC and standards.

Skills

DevOps leadership

Platform engineering

Kubernetes

CI/CD

Event-driven design

SRE practices

Architectural leadership

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

Kafka

Pub/Sub

BigQuery

Cloud Storage

GCP

AWS

Terraform

ArgoCD

Job description

Make Your Mark: The Staff Cloud Platform Engineer is a senior technical leader at the heart of BlackLine's platform strategy. In this role you will drive the design, automation, and operational excellence of the service backbone that powers BlackLine SaaS products. You will lead the evolution of our mission-critical platforms that have a direct influence on revenue generation, as well as serve as a trusted technical authority influencing architecture across the organization. If you are an expert in DevOps principles, containers, event-driven technology, and data pipeline engineering and you thrive with ambiguity, think big without losing the details, and set the standard for engineering quality; this role is for you.

You’ll Get To:

• Serve as technical lead and subject matter expert for engineering platform service architecture, driving design and delivery of scalable, resilient, cloud-native infrastructure.
• Architect and develop Kubernetes-native systems, including serverless architecture utilizing stateless services and serverless driven Knative sequences.
• Design and operate event-driven systems, utilizing platforms like Kafka and Pub/Sub, and bring an understanding of how to build for eventually consistent, efficient services.
• Champion a security-first approach across all platform design: network topology, firewall policy, container hardening, logging, monitoring, availability, and resiliency.
• Establish and maintain observability through custom sensors, dashboards, and alerting to ensure health, performance, and SLO compliance.
• Own and evolve the team's CI/CD strategy, ensuring the right mix of operational efficiency and toolchain security.
• Collaborate with and influence partner engineering teams, product, and IT teams on architecture decisions, IaC principles, and platform standards.
• Mentor engineers across the team; define and uphold documentation, operational runbooks, and engineering standards.
• Provide technical leadership for major cross-functional initiatives and serve as an escalation point for complex issues.

What You’ll Bring:

• 7-10+ years of experience in any combination of engineering, platform, or SRE roles.
• Expert, deep proficiency in at least one of: Rust, C#, Python, Go, Java, or equivalent) for platform engineering and SaaS development.
• Understanding of contrainer-targeted application development, such as with Docker, Swarm, Kubernetes, or App Engine.
• Understands and leverages cutting-edge AI tools, such as Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT, and Cursor, to enhance development productivity and efficiency of delivery; while effectively curating code quality.
• Hands-on experience with GCP (preferred) and/or AWS in production at scale; strong understanding of core services including BigQuery, Pub/Sub, Cloud Storage, VPC networking, and IAM.
• Experience working with stateful databases and key-value datastores, such as PostgreSQL, Microsoft SQL, MySQL, MariaDB, MongoDB, Redis, and ValKey.
• Demonstrated ability to drive architectural decisions, lead platform-level initiatives, and influence cross-functional engineering teams.
• Thinks and executes like a technically minded product owner: is able to extract meaningful prioritization and delivery milestones from top-down leadership decisions and org initiatives.
• Experience designing and operating event-driven platforms (Kafka, Airflow, or equivalent).
• Strong written and oral communication skills; track record of building productive relationships across engineering, product, and IT organizations.
• Constant drive for operational improvement: ability to identify bottlenecks, implement change, and raise the quality bar across teams.

We’re Even More Excited If You Have:

• Proficiency with Kubernetes, including scheduler optimization, GitOps workflows via ArgoCD, config management via Kustomize, and security tooling.
• Familiarity with frontend frameworks like React, Angular, or Vue are a plus.
• Hands-on experience with Google Cloud managed services, including: BigQuery, Pub/Sub, Cloud Storage, and relevant compute products.
• Working knowledge of Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using Terraform and/or CloudFormation; experience with Ansible or comparable configuration management tooling.
• Experience with container security scanning, policy enforcement, and supply-chain tooling.

Thrive at BlackLine Because You Are Joining: A technology-based company with a sense of adventure and a vision for the future. Every door at BlackLine is open. Just bring your brains, your problem-solving skills, and be part of a winning team at the world's most trusted name in Finance Automation! A culture that is kind, open, and accepting. It's a place where people can embrace what makes them unique, and the mix of cultural backgrounds and varying interests cultivates diverse thought and perspectives. A culture where BlackLiner's continued growth and learning is empowered. BlackLine offers a wide variety of professional development seminars and inclusive affinity groups to celebrate and support our diversity. BlackLine is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to sex, gender identity or expression, race, ethnicity, age, religious creed, national origin, physical or mental disability, ancestry, color, marital status, sexual orientation, military or veteran status, status as a victim of domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking, medical condition, genetic information, or any other protected class or category recognized by applicable equal employment opportunity or other similar laws. BlackLine recognizes that the ways we work and the workplace itself has shifted. We innovate in a workplace that optimizes a combination of virtual and in‑person interactions to maximize collaboration and nurture our culture. Candidates who live within a reasonable commute to one of our offices will work in the office at least 3 days a week.

Salary Range: $193,000.00-$242,000.00 Pay Transparency Statement: Placement within this range depends upon several factors, including the applicant's prior relevant job experience, skill set, and geographic location. In addition to base pay, BlackLine also offers short‑term and long‑term incentive programs, based on eligibility, along with a robust offering of benefit and wellness plans. We are committed to pay transparency and ensuring candidates have clear information about compensation expectations. For roles that include variable incentive components such as an Incentive Compensation Plan (ICP) or On-Target Earnings (OTE), the compensation structure may follow a split model - for example, a 50/50, 70/30, or 60/40 ratio between base salary and variable incentive. BlackLine is committed to creating an inclusive and accessible experience for all candidates. If you require a reasonable accommodation that would better enable your success during the application or interview process, please complete this form.

Accommodations: BlackLine is committed to creating an inclusive and accessible experience for all candidates. If you require a reasonable accommodation that would better enable your success during the application or interview process, please complete this form.

Accommodations: BlackLine is committed to creating an inclusive and accessible experience for all candidates. If you require a reasonable accommodation that would better enable your success during the application or interview process, please complete this form.

Wondering what it's like to work at BlackLine? Don't take our word for it. We've been voted Best Place to Work by Inc. Magazine four years in a row. Built in LA ranks us in their top 100 Best Places to Work in LA. Reviewers on Glassdoor say we have "smart and kind people", "phenomenal culture", and "good work/life balance". Sound good? Check out our open positions and see if there's a fit for you.

At BlackLine, we follow a comprehensive recruitment process which is undertaken by our talent acquisition team. We conduct personal interviews of all potential job seekers and do not follow practice of making employment offers based solely on a candidate’s resume. We do not solicit any payment under the name of security deposit and/or visa/work-permit processing fee, etc., either refundable or non-refundable, at any stage of the recruitment process. Openings at BlackLine are listed on our career webpage in addition to being advertised in job portals. Job seekers are requested to be vigilant of any fraudulent or suspicious activities in protection of their interest. BlackLine shall not be held liable for any loss or damage, direct or indirect, incurred as a result of this act.