Head of Platform Engineering

Plaud's Platform team builds the shared services every product team relies on: sign-in and enterprise single sign-on, user permissions, integrations with other apps, our public API, billing and payments, file storage and sync, the common app framework and design system, internal support tools, and search. You would lead the team across the US and Asia, and build the enterprise foundations that take a $300M consumer business upmarket. What you will do • Define and drive the strategy for Plaud's Platform Engineering organization, with teams in the US and Asia. Platform builds each shared service once and runs it as a product for the teams that use it. • Lead the teams that own: sign-in and access control (SSO/SAML, OAuth, SCIM, MFA, roles and permissions, audit logs), integrations with third-party apps, the public API and developer tools (API, CLI, MCP), billing and payments, file storage and sync, the shared app framework (design system, release process, feature flags, experiments), internal support and admin tools, and search. • Build the enterprise foundations Plaud needs to move upmarket: SSO, SCIM, fine-grained permissions, audit, and regional data residency with Infrastructure. • Run Platform as a product: every service has clear internal customers, a documented interface, dated commitments, and regular feedback from the teams that use it. • Gather requests from product teams each quarter and publish one Platform roadmap with dates the company can rely on. • Set engineering standards for shared systems, so other teams can contribute changes themselves with your design sign-off instead of waiting on you. • Lead a team spread across the US and Asia through written specs, a fixed daily overlap, and a close partnership with your lead architect in Asia. • Own reliability, SLOs and on-call for every Platform service, working with Infrastructure on production access and deployment pipelines. • Hire, mentor and grow senior engineers and team leads in the US and Asia, and over time bring billing and subscription logic into Platform. Skills, qualifications and experience we look for • 12+ years of software engineering experience, including 5+ years leading platform or infrastructure-adjacent teams of 15+ engineers. • Proven track record building identity, permissions or API platforms for enterprise SaaS, such as SSO/SAML, SCIM, RBAC/ABAC, multi-tenant workspace models or public APIs. • Experience running an internal platform as a product, with clear interfaces, SLOs and customer feedback loops. • Demonstrated success leading distributed teams across the US and Asia. • Deep backend expertise in Go, Java or similar, with strong distributed systems and cloud-native architecture skills (AWS/GCP, Kubernetes). • Experience building under SOC 2, GDPR and HIPAA controls and supporting audits. • Experience with billing and entitlement systems (Stripe, Metronome or similar) is a plus. • Recognized technical influence through open-source contributions, conference talks or technical publications is a plus. • Routinely uses AI tools in daily work and can demo recent usage during the interview. What we offer 1. Meaningful Ownership An Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) that gives a real stake in Plaud's long-term success. 2. High-Impact Environment Work in a fast-moving, product-driven environment where your ideas directly shape the future of AI productivity. 3. Cutting-Edge AI Tools for Productivity Access to best-in-class AI tools, including Gemini, Claude Code, and other frontier AI systems to maximize engineering and execution efficiency. 4. Best-in-Class Equipment Choice of top-spec laptops, high-performance workstation setups, and cutting-edge Plaud devices for all new hires. 5. Team & Culture Annual company offsites, team events, and a culture that values craftsmanship, ownership, and velocity.