Tech Lead – Platform

About the Role

We are looking for a highly seasoned Tech Lead with a deep SaaS background to bridge the gap between high-level architectural vision and hands-on technical execution. In this role, you will be a cornerstone of the Platform group, blending very senior development expertise with architectural leadership.

You will lead by example, spending a significant portion of your time in the code while simultaneously guiding the technical and architectural direction of the group. Reporting to the Platform Group Manager, you will collaborate with product managers and engineers to deliver robust capabilities consumed by internal teams and external customers.

What You'll Do

Hands-on Technical Leadership

Lead or co-drive the implementation of complex, cross-cutting platform features, maintaining a high standard for code quality and system performance.

Translate architectural goals into actionable technical roadmaps and lead teams through successful execution.

Balance daily feature delivery with long-term architectural health, ensuring that technical debt is managed effectively.

Provide deep-dive code reviews and technical mentorship, elevating the engineering craft across the domain.

Serve as the primary technical point of contact for the group, making critical decisions on implementation patterns and tool selection.

Architectural Execution

Collaborate with the other tech leads to ensure cross-group-level implementations align with Cloudinary's broader technical and architectural strategy.

Drive the adoption of modern distributed system patterns and cloud-native best practices through direct implementation and guidance.

Champion the use of AI tools to optimize development lifecycles while maintaining deep ownership of the system codebase.

What You Bring

10+ years of software engineering experience with a track record of building and maintaining large-scale SaaS systems.

A hands-on "lead from the front" mentality, with the ability to solve complex technical problems through hands-on coding.

Experience bridging high-level architecture with practical implementation details across multiple teams.

Strong proficiency in cloud-native technologies (AWS) and modern backend languages such as Go, Ruby, or Node.

Excellent communication skills, capable of explaining architectural trade-offs to both engineers and product stakeholders.