Staff Platform Engineer

ABOUT PAVE BANK Pave Bank is the world’s first programmable business bank. Built by the founders behind Monzo and BigPay, we’re redefining global business banking by combining programmable financial infrastructure with world-class client experiences. ABOUT THE ROLE We are looking for a Head of Platform Engineering to own the development and operation of Pave Bank's platform infrastructure. This is a hands-on technical leadership role. You will define the technical direction for platform engineering, remain deeply involved in the design and implementation of critical systems, and help shape the engineering practices and capabilities required as Pave scales. The role is load-bearing, with direct responsibility for production systems, technical troubleshooting, and participation in the on-call rotation. WHAT YOU'LL DO - Own the technical direction and evolution of Pave's platform infrastructure. - Design, build, and maintain reliable platform systems and services on GCP. - Remain hands-on with software development, particularly in Go. - Design and implement authentication systems using OAuth 2.0, including authentication flows and integrations in Go. - Work with Temporal for workflow orchestration. - Build and operate production workloads on Kubernetes. - Design and manage cloud networking infrastructure, including VPC, Cloud IPsec, and KMS. - Work with Cloud SQL and PostgreSQL, including the design and operation of production database systems. - Own and improve platform CI/CD and infrastructure-as-code practices. - Establish and maintain appropriate observability, monitoring, and alerting across platform systems. - Act as a technical lead for complex platform and infrastructure problems. - Take ownership of production issues and participate in the on-call rotation. - Work closely with other engineering teams to build platform capabilities that support their technical requirements. - Make practical architectural decisions and drive projects from design through implementation and operation. - Help establish the engineering standards, practices, and technical foundations for the platform as the function grows. - Mentor and support engineers working on platform and infrastructure as the team develops. WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR TECHNICAL - Strong experience in platform, infrastructure, or backend engineering, with significant hands-on experience. - Strong experience with Go and the ability to build production services. - Hands-on experience with Temporal. - Strong understanding of OAuth 2.0, with the ability to implement authentication flows in Go. - Strong hands-on experience with Kubernetes and production workloads. - Strong experience with GCP and cloud infrastructure. - Experience with cloud networking, including: - VPC - Cloud IPsec - KMS - Strong experience with Cloud SQL and PostgreSQL. - Experience with infrastructure-as-code and CI/CD. - Experience building and maintaining observability, monitoring, and alerting for production systems. - Strong experience operating and troubleshooting production systems. LEADERSHIP & OWNERSHIP - Experience as a technical lead or engineering leader, with the ability to provide technical direction and make architectural decisions. - Comfortable remaining hands-on rather than being purely a people manager. - Strong ownership of production systems and technical outcomes. - Comfortable participating in on-call and handling production incidents. - Able to make sound technical and architectural decisions and communicate them clearly. - Comfortable working in a fast-moving environment where you may need to solve problems directly. - Able to mentor engineers and help establish strong engineering practices as the function grows. NICE TO HAVE - Experience working in fintech, banking, payments, or other financial technology environments. - Experience working with systems where security, reliability, and availability are critical. - Experience working in a highly regulated or security-conscious environment.