Lead Platform Engineer (Python + TypeScript, GCP)
Required
Lead Platform Engineer (Python + TypeScript, GCP)
Role Summary
We are looking for a hands-on Lead Platform Engineer to take ownership of a production AI matching platform built on a distributed Python microservices architecture with a TypeScript frontend. This role will lead the technical evolution of an event-driven system running on Google Cloud Run, with heavy responsibility for reliability, traceability, observability, data correctness, and platform scalability.
The ideal candidate combines strong distributed systems and cloud infrastructure experience with practical software leadership. They should be comfortable leading a small engineering team while still working directly in the codebase across Python services, shared platform libraries, Terraform-managed infrastructure, PostgreSQL/Cloud SQL, and the TypeScript/React application layer.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead and mentor a small team of engineers working across Python backend services and the TypeScript frontend, setting a high bar for engineering quality, ownership, and collaboration.
- Own the architecture and operational health of a multi-service event-driven platform built on Google Cloud Run, Pub/Sub, PostgreSQL/Cloud SQL, and shared internal libraries.
- Drive reliability across distributed workflows, including idempotent processing, retry behavior, failure recovery, schema evolution, and safe production change management.
- Define and improve observability standards across services, including structured logging, trace and correlation IDs, metrics, alerting, error tracking, and incident diagnostics.
- Lead platform improvements around CI/CD, Terraform infrastructure, deployment safety, database migrations, secret management, and environment promotion.
- Improve performance and scalability across services, including concurrency tuning, autoscaling strategy, capacity planning, queue behavior, and database efficiency.
- Oversee core platform capabilities such as shared logging, resilience patterns, service-to-service contracts, internal tooling, and developer experience.
- Partner closely with product, design, and frontend leadership to support the matching experience end to end, from backend APIs and scoring services to the React application.
- Guide the evolution of AI-powered workflows that use OpenAI, embeddings, normalization pipelines, and deterministic scoring systems, balancing product speed with correctness and traceability.
- Partner with the CTO on long-term platform strategy, technical roadmap, hiring, and system evolution.
Main Skills and Qualifications
- 7+ years of experience in backend, platform, or distributed systems engineering, ideally in SaaS, data, or AI-enabled products.
- 2+ years of experience leading or mentoring engineers at Staff, Principal, or Team Lead level.
- Strong production experience with Python as a primary backend language.
- Strong working fluency in TypeScript, with the ability to support and guide a React-based frontend codebase.
- Deep experience designing and operating distributed systems with asynchronous/event-driven workflows.
- Hands-on experience with Google Cloud Platform, especially Cloud Run, Pub/Sub, Cloud SQL/PostgreSQL, Secret Manager, and Artifact Registry.
- Strong experience with infrastructure as code and delivery automation, especially Terraform, Docker, and GitHub Actions CI/CD pipelines.
- Strong understanding of production reliability practices, including incident response, failure mode analysis, retry semantics, backpressure, circuit breakers, and graceful degradation.
- Experience implementing observability across services, including metrics, structured logging, traceability, alerting, Datadog, Sentry, or similar tooling.
- Strong experience with PostgreSQL data modeling, performance tuning, and migration workflows; familiarity with pgvector or vector-backed retrieval is a plus.
- Experience building shared platform abstractions, internal tooling, or reusable service libraries used across multiple teams or services.
- Strong system design skills with the ability to balance speed, maintainability, and operational safety.
- Excellent communication and leadership skills, with the ability to work cross-functionally with product, design, and executive stakeholders.
Nice to Have
- Experience with FastAPI and Python microservice architectures.
- Experience with Salesforce integrations, webhook security, or external data ingestion pipelines.
- Experience with OpenAI-powered products, embedding pipelines, prompt versioning, or AI workflow orchestration.
- Familiarity with candidate matching, ranking systems, search/retrieval, or evidence-based scoring platforms.
- Working knowledge of Node.js tooling in support of the TypeScript frontend ecosystem.
Some Benefits
💻 Hardware and accessories to set you up for success
💰 Personal health insurance benefit (family coverage not included)
🏋️ Gym membership
🍹 Community activities and events (either remote or on-site)
👨🏫 Complimentary English lessons to help you grow both professionally and personally
🎁 Birthday and anniversary presents
🏢 Access to our offices or work remotely—your choice!
🌴 Paid vacation and national holidays (according to your location)
🕐 Flexible work schedule
About Howdy
Howdy.com, founded in 2018 and headquartered in Austin, Texas, helps US companies who want to hire, manage, and retain their teams in Latin America (LatAm) directly but need help with multinational logistics, contracts, compliance, and culture. Companies that use Howdy.com get the best talent available in LatAm and gain access to an entire network and a thriving community of professionals who are changing the world. By partnering with Howdy.com, companies can expand their physical presence into some of the fastest-growing economies in LatAm.
Howdy.com is a member of Y Combinator and has garnered significant support from prominent investors, including Greycroft and Obvious Ventures. The company raised over $20 million in a series A venture capital round.
Our core values
#1 Sports Team: At Howdy, we win together. From players to support, everyone is vital to our success. We hire for excellence, prioritize teamwork, and strive for continuous improvement. We collaborate, seek advice, and actively contribute to Howdy's victories.
Altruism: Demonstrating altruism involves prioritizing the team and assuming the best in others. We communicate openly, provide honest feedback, and extend grace. Altruism is selfless service, focusing on supporting our players and team growth.
Curiosity: Being curious at Howdy means having the willingness to learn, adapt, and explore new ideas. We question existing beliefs, embrace humility, and see curiosity as our superpower. Demonstrating curiosity involves researching unfamiliar tasks, asking questions to understand the full picture, and seeking better ways to complete routine tasks.
Have Spirit: Having spirit at Howdy is about celebrating wins, building a sense of community, and bringing positivity. Demonstrating spirit involves attending events, getting to know teammates, participating in challenges, and proudly wearing the Howdy swag. Simply put, it's about bringing a super-fan spirit to work every day.