Platform Engineering Lead

Location: Global
Working Arrangement: Remote/Hybrid
Timezone: CST hours

About Plutus21

Plutus21 is a global technology, investment, and operating platform focused on building and scaling businesses through technology and AI.

Recognized on the AI 75, Dallas 100, and Inc. 5000, Plutus21 has grown to more than 200 professionals across eight countries. We are now building the leadership team for our next stage of global growth.

We are seeking a Platform Engineering Lead to architect and build the foundational technology platform behind how Plutus21 develops and deploys technology across our organization and the businesses we work with.

This is a hands-on engineering leadership role. You will architect and build the platform while developing a team of Forward Deployed Engineers who deploy it against real business problems. You will be expected to remain deeply involved in architecture, coding, technical problem-solving, and production delivery as the team grows.

The objective is to create reusable infrastructure that allows Plutus21 to connect enterprise data, model business processes, develop operational software, and deploy AI systems across multiple businesses with increasing speed, consistency, and reliability.

Responsibilities

Platform Architecture & Engineering

• Lead the architecture and development of our core technology platform
• Build a unified data layer connecting databases, APIs, documents, applications, and real-time data sources
• Develop an ontology and semantic layer that models business objects, relationships, actions, and permissions
• Build reusable frameworks for rapidly developing operational applications and internal tools
• Develop workflow and automation infrastructure for complex business processes
• Build infrastructure that allows AI agents to securely access business context, use tools, and take approved actions
• Design APIs and integration frameworks for connecting business applications and third-party systems
• Establish scalable cloud architecture, deployment standards, observability, and reliability practices
• Make thoughtful build-versus-buy decisions across the technology stack

Forward Deployed Engineering

• Work directly with executives, operators, and customers to understand complex business problems
• Translate business processes into data models, software applications, workflows, and AI systems
• Deploy technology into real operating environments and remain involved through production and adoption
• Turn successful customer-specific solutions into reusable platform capabilities
• Develop repeatable deployment patterns that allow Plutus21 to move from problem to production quickly
• Build and lead a team of Forward Deployed Engineers as the platform scales
• Establish engineering standards, development practices, and technical training for the team

AI & Modern Development

• Use AI coding agents and modern development tools as a core part of the software development lifecycle, including coding, debugging, testing, documentation, and code review
• Design systems using large language models, tool calling, retrieval, structured outputs, evaluations, and agentic workflows
• Evaluate emerging AI models, frameworks, infrastructure, and development tools
• Build reusable infrastructure for deploying AI safely across different businesses
• Develop systems where AI works alongside people rather than operating as an isolated application
• Maintain a strong bias toward experimentation while ensuring successful prototypes can scale into production systems

Enterprise Security & Compliance

• Design security, privacy, and governance into the platform from the beginning
• Implement enterprise identity, single sign-on, role-based and attribute-based access controls, and least-privilege architecture
• Maintain appropriate customer and tenant data isolation
• Implement encryption, secrets management, audit logging, data lineage, and monitoring
• Establish secure software development and vulnerability management practices
• Design appropriate permissions and human approval controls for AI agents
• Build with enterprise compliance requirements in mind, including SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, and other applicable standards
• Partner with security, legal, and compliance teams as the platform expands into regulated environments

Qualifications

• 6+ years of software engineering experience, including significant ownership of production software architecture
• Experience leading the architecture and development of complex software platforms
• Experience designing ontologies, knowledge graphs, or object-based enterprise data models
• Strong full-stack engineering background
• Experience with modern frontend and backend development, including technologies such as TypeScript, Python, React, APIs, and cloud infrastructure
• Strong understanding of relational databases, data modeling, distributed systems, and enterprise integrations
• Experience building data platforms, semantic layers, knowledge graphs, ontologies, workflow systems, or similar foundational infrastructure
• Experience taking software from early prototype through production deployment
• Experience building enterprise-grade software with security, permissions, reliability, and compliance requirements
• Experience working directly with customers, executives, or business operators
• Strong ability to translate ambiguous business problems into technical architecture
• Experience mentoring or leading engineers
• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• Ability to operate effectively in a fast-moving, entrepreneurial environment
• Ability to travel to the United States and other locations as required

Preferred Experience

• Experience with large language models, AI agents, retrieval systems, vector databases, evaluations, and model infrastructure
• Experience building developer platforms or frameworks used by other engineers
• Experience with cloud-native and event-driven architectures
• Experience integrating enterprise systems such as CRM, ERP, finance, HR, operations, and customer service platforms
• Experience working in a forward-deployed, solutions engineering, platform engineering, or technical consulting environment
• Experience building engineering teams from an early stage

What We Are Looking For

The right person combines the mindset of a platform architect, product engineer, and technical operator.

You should be comfortable moving between system architecture, hands-on development, customer conversations, and engineering leadership. You should have a strong bias toward building and shipping, solving real problems quickly without over-engineering solutions.

You should be able to enter an unfamiliar business, understand how it operates, identify the underlying data and workflows, and determine how software and AI can improve it.

Most importantly, you should think beyond individual applications. We want someone who can identify the common infrastructure underneath many different business problems and turn what we learn from each deployment into a platform that becomes more powerful with every implementation.

The Opportunity

Plutus21 has grown to more than 200 professionals across eight countries and has been recognized by the AI 75, Dallas 100, and Inc. 5000.

We are building the leadership team and technology foundation for our next stage of global growth.

The Platform Engineering Lead will have the opportunity to shape our core architecture, build foundational technology from the ground up, and develop the Forward Deployed Engineering organization responsible for deploying it around the world.