stream - Lead Engineer – Platform & Infrastructure
Requirements
• Software engineering background — you built things, not just configured them. Backend or platform coding experience in Go or Python (not scripting-only). • Strong AWS or GCP depth — production ownership, not just certifications. Experience with cloud cost optimization at scale with measurable outcomes. • Distributed systems and database architecture — real schema decisions, replication trade-offs, latency budgets. Not just "ran Kubernetes". • Hands-on leadership — you can lead a project and a PR in the same week. Comfortable in a team of 3–5, not dependent on large-org support structures. • AI tooling fluency — you use AI tools actively in your engineering workflow. We screen for applied adoption, not familiarity. If you're not convinced AI is useful, this isn't the right fit. • Kubernetes experience at meaningful production scale • Cloud migration experience — moving workloads between providers or re-architecting for cost/performance • Open source contributions to infra or platform tooling • Engineering blog or conference talks on cloud, platform, or distributed systems topics • Prior experience at an API-first or infrastructure-enabling scaleup • What We're Not Looking For • Being explicit saves everyone time: • Security-heavy profiles — if compliance frameworks and security assessments are your primary domain, this isn't the right role. • Scripting-only backgrounds — Bash, Ansible, and Terraform are tools, not an engineering foundation. • Large-enterprise dependency — if impact required teams of 20+ or committee approval, the scope here will feel very different. • AI skepticism — we won't spend time convincing you AI is worth adopting.
Benefits
• Our platform works — but we're growing fast and there's meaningful work ahead on cost optimization, cloud efficiency, and platform scalability. The team needs a strong engineering leader who comes from a software engineering background, can own technical decisions independently, and can make infrastructure move faster without introducing big-org process dependencies. • What You'll Work On • Your first 6 months will focus on three areas: • Cloud cost optimization — identify waste, drive rightsizing, build tooling and guardrails to prevent cost regressions. We want measurable outcomes, not reports. • Platform reliability and scalability — improve observability, define SLOs where they're missing, and harden the systems all of Stream's products depend on. • Architecture and infra evolution — evaluate and drive decisions on Kubernetes adoption, database architecture, and cloud provider strategy (including potential migration work). • Beyond that, you'll shape long-term platform direction, define engineering standards, and collaborate with product and SDK engineers to keep the developer platform fast to build on. • Core Technologies • Go · Python · AWS · GCP · Kubernetes · PostgreSQL · CockroachDB · Redis · Terraform · Prometheus / observability stack • Company equity • 28 days PTO + Dutch public holidays • Pension scheme • Learning & Development budget • Commute reimbursement to Amsterdam or company bike • Fitness stipend • Access to open-source project work • Benefits are adjusted per country of residence for remote hires. • High scale/ difficult engineering • Default alive. Startup growth opportunity with healthy revenue • Strong engineering culture. Engineering is what makes us succeed • All managers are hands-on and capable engineers • Edge network of servers around the world • Great opportunity to learn and grow • Raised $58M from leading VCs (Felicis Ventures, Notable Capital, 01.Advisors, Techstars, Arthur Ventures), including backers like Dick Costolo (01 Advisors, ex-CEO of Twitter), Olivier Pomel (CEO of Datadog), Tom Preston-Werner (Co-Founder of GitHub), Nicolas Dessaigne (Co-Founder of Algolia) • Hybrid office policy: applicants based (or relocating to) one of our office locations are expected to work according to the applicable local office attendance policy.
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