Technical Lead – Data Platform

StratITech; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 240,000 - 270,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Benefits

Job summary

StratITech is hiring a Technical Lead – Data Platform in San Francisco to set the technical direction for a high-scale data platform and its processing systems. This hands-on leadership role requires guiding architecture, mentoring engineers, and delivering complex components.

You will collaborate across product, data science, ML, and infra teams to improve scalability, performance, and observability while maintaining rigorous engineering standards.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience building production data platforms, distributed systems, infrastructure, or systems software.
• Deep experience designing and operating distributed systems.
• Strong experience with event-driven architectures and asynchronous processing.
• Hands-on experience with large-scale data technologies such as Kafka, Spark, Flink, or comparable frameworks.
• Experience with workflow orchestration and complex data-processing pipelines.
• Experience with modern lakehouse or analytical-storage technologies such as Apache Iceberg, Delta Lake, or similar.
• Professional experience with at least one systems-oriented programming language.
• Strong performance-engineering instincts, including profiling, concurrency, throughput, and latency optimization.
• Experience setting technical direction through architecture, design reviews, code reviews, and mentorship.
• Excellent technical communication and sound engineering judgment.
• Ability to work onsite in San Francisco five days per week.

Responsibilities

• Own the technical direction and architecture of the data platform and processing systems.
• Lead technical execution across system design, sequencing, standards, and tradeoffs.
• Build the most complex, high-risk, and performance-sensitive platform components.
• Prototype, benchmark, and validate technical approaches before broader implementation.
• Identify and reduce architectural and delivery risks.
• Establish standards for system design, implementation, testing, observability, and documentation.
• Lead architecture reviews, design reviews, and code reviews.
• Mentor senior engineers and raise the technical bar across the team.
• Collaborate with product, data science, machine learning, infrastructure, and SRE teams.
• Improve platform scalability, resilience, performance, and observability.
• Clearly communicate complex engineering decisions and tradeoffs to technical and nontechnical stakeholders.

Skills

Distributed systems

Event-driven architectures

Kafka

Spark

Flink

Data platform design

Mentoring engineers

Technical leadership

Performance optimization

Code reviews

Architecture reviews

Job description

Base Salary: $240,000–$270,000, plus equity and benefits

Note: No C2C arrangements will be considered.

Any attempt to use personal or household contact information for solicitation, candidate submission, or vendor outreach is strictly prohibited and will be reported to LinkedIn.

About the Company

We are partnering with a well-funded, rapidly scaling technology company building advanced AI-powered data and analytics systems for major global enterprises.

The company operates a highly sophisticated data and computing environment and is solving difficult problems across distributed systems, large-scale data processing, performance engineering, and production AI infrastructure.

This role sits within an independent, product-focused data division that operates with significant technical autonomy while sharing infrastructure, engineering standards, and operational resources with the broader organization.

About the Role

We are seeking a Technical Lead – Data Platform to set the technical direction and architecture for a high-scale data platform and its underlying processing systems.

This is a hands-on technical leadership role for someone who wants staff- or principal-level influence while remaining deeply involved in production engineering. You will serve as the engineering anchor for the team: defining architecture, guiding technical execution, reducing roadmap risk, raising engineering standards, mentoring experienced engineers, and personally building the most difficult components.

Your influence will come from the quality of your technical judgment, architecture, code, and ability to bring the team with you.

What You’ll Do

• Own the technical direction and architecture of the data platform and processing systems
• Lead technical execution across system design, sequencing, standards, and tradeoffs
• Build the most complex, high-risk, and performance-sensitive platform components
• Prototype, benchmark, and validate technical approaches before broader implementation
• Identify and reduce architectural and delivery risks
• Establish standards for system design, implementation, testing, observability, and documentation
• Lead architecture reviews, design reviews, and code reviews
• Mentor senior engineers and raise the technical bar across the team
• Collaborate with product, data science, machine learning, infrastructure, and SRE teams
• Improve platform scalability, resilience, performance, and observability
• Clearly communicate complex engineering decisions and tradeoffs to technical and nontechnical stakeholders

What We’re Looking For

• 10+ years of experience building production data platforms, distributed systems, infrastructure, or systems software
• Demonstrated success as the technical anchor on complex, high-scale engineering projects
• Deep experience designing and operating distributed systems
• Strong experience with event-driven architectures and asynchronous processing
• Hands-on experience with large-scale data technologies such as Kafka, Spark, Flink, or comparable frameworks
• Experience with workflow orchestration and complex data-processing pipelines
• Experience with modern lakehouse or analytical-storage technologies such as Apache Iceberg, Delta Lake, or similar
• Professional experience with at least one systems-oriented programming language
• Strong performance-engineering instincts, including profiling, concurrency, throughput, and latency optimization
• Experience setting technical direction through architecture, design reviews, code reviews, and mentorship
• Excellent technical communication and sound engineering judgment
• Ability to work onsite in San Francisco five days per week

Nice to Have

• Rust
• CUDA or GPU-computing experience
• Kernel-level or low-level systems optimization
• High-performance computing
• Cloud-based data services
• MLOps or production machine-learning infrastructureExperience productionizing complex ML workloads
• Experience building a new platform or major architectural component from the ground up

Why Join

• Own the technical direction of a sophisticated data platform operating at significant scale
• Remain deeply hands-on while influencing an experienced engineering team
• Solve challenging problems across distributed systems, data processing, performance, and AI infrastructure
• Work closely with senior engineers, scientists, product leaders, and infrastructure specialists
• Join a well-capitalized organization with strong enterprise traction and meaningful growth
• Receive a highly competitive salary, meaningful equity, and comprehensive benefits

Work Authorization: Candidates must be currently authorized to work in the United States. This position is not eligible for new or future employer-sponsored work authorization.