Director of Platform Engineering, Babylist
CA$252-315k
+ Equity and Bonus
Online universal baby registry
Open for applications
Online universal baby registry
501-1000 employees
Open for applications
CA$252-315k
+ Equity and Bonus
501-1000 employees
Company mission
To help expecting parents get exactly what they need for the arrival of their new baby.
Role
Who you are
- Experienced Leader: You have 8-10+ years of experience in platform engineering and security, with at least 4 years in a leadership role at a high-growth technology company
- Strategic Thinker: A technical leader who is skilled at creating a long-term vision and making pragmatic build-vs-buy decisions. You have a proven track record of leading large-scale initiatives
- Technical Expertise: Deep, hands-on experience with modern cloud infrastructure, containerization, CI/CD, and infrastructure as code. You have deep knowledge of security best practices and compliance for customer-facing applications
- Collaborative Communicator: You excel at partnering with cross-functional teams and can translate complex technical concepts for diverse audiences to influence decisions across the organization
- A Passion for the Platform: You are passionate about creating a fantastic developer experience and ensuring platform reliability. You lead with a strong sense of ownership and use data to drive results
What the job involves
- As the Director of Platform Engineering at Babylist, you will be a key leader responsible for the foundational technology that powers our growth. This is a highly strategic role that involves defining the future of our platform to support our expanding business, from our core registry to new health services
- You will lead the teams responsible for platform engineering, developer experience (DevEx), and security, ensuring our systems are scalable, secure, and empower our engineers to innovate quickly
- This role reports to the SVP of Engineering
- Define and Communicate Platform Strategy: Develop a clear, forward-looking platform roadmap that anticipates future business needs and scales for tens of millions of users. You will partner with product, engineering, and executive stakeholders to understand their needs, communicate the vision, and ensure the platform roadmap enables their success
- Build a World-Class Developer Experience: Champion developer productivity by delivering tooling, automated workflows, and internal platforms that enable engineering teams to ship code faster and more reliably
- Lead Platform and Security Engineering: Evolve our cloud architecture to handle increasing traffic and complexity while optimizing for cost and efficiency. You will lead the implementation of a unified security strategy, embedding DevSecOps practices and automated security tooling into the development lifecycle to protect user data and ensure compliance
- Drive Data-Driven Decisions: Implement comprehensive monitoring and observability to provide clear insights into platform health, developer productivity, and security posture. Use this data to justify technical decisions and guide your roadmap
- Build and Mentor High-Performing Teams: Recruit, develop, and lead a talented team of platform and security engineers. Foster a culture of technical excellence, ownership, and continuous learning that empowers engineers to do their best work
- Our Tech Stack
- Cloud & Infrastructure: AWS, Kubernetes, Terraform
- Languages & Frameworks: Ruby on Rails, React
- Databases & Data: MySQL, Redis, Snowflake
- CI/CD & Observability: GitHub Actions, Datadog
Our take
Since its 2011 launch, Babylist has grown into one of the most highly rated baby registries in the US. The difference it offers is that it allows users to include products from any store in their registries. On top of this, the company’s model also focuses heavily on creating informational content, which allows it to generate ad revenue while building customer loyalty.
Originally scaled with fairly low venture funding, Babylist claims half of new parents in the US now use its services. This, given that the baby products industry is worth close to $90 billion, shows the immense growth of the company as well as speaking to the impact it has made in the space.
Babylist has seen strong funding in the past which fuelled projects such as the launch of virtual showrooms, and facilitated the company's expansion further into the market. The company acquired Expectful, a health and wellness tool, in 2023 with the long-term vision to combine the companies into a larger health and wellness media property, that can help people navigate all parts of parenthood from fertility to diapers.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
67% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (1 round)
Nov 2021
$40m
SERIES C
Total funding: $40m
Company benefits
- HAPPIER WEEKENDS – We work to live, not live to work. That means we generally don’t work nights or weekends, and we offer 10 paid holidays throughout the year, in addition to your paid time off.
- PAID TIME OFF THAT WORKS FOR YOU – Life is unpredictable. Use your time off for what you need, whether that’s a vacation, family event or a day to unplug.
- PARENTAL LEAVE – We offer a flexible, 12-week paid parental leave policy.
- FLEXIBLE BENEFITS – Choose from benefits that support your working style, whether that's remote, in the office or something in between.
- HEALTH & WELLNESS – Wellness benefits include 100% paid coverage for medical, vision and dental for full-time employees.
- BABYLIST STORE DISCOUNT – All full-time employees receive a generous Babylist Store discount.
Company HQ
Emeryville, CA
Leadership
Natalie Gordon
(CEO)Former Software Engineer at Amazon. Initially founded Babylist as a side project and has since taken the company to a market leading status.
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