Senior Platform Engineering Lead

About the Role We invite you to join our team as a Senior Platform Engineering Lead, where you will have the opportunity to shape the core platform, infrastructure, and developer tools that power our innovative products. This is a unique role that blends hands-on engineering with strategic foresight- you will design and implement essential systems, define the platform roadmap, and collaborate across engineering teams to establish a secure, reliable, and scalable foundation. In this position, reporting directly to the CTO, you will gain the independence to identify challenges, set strategic directions, and execute impactful solutions. Work closely with engineering managers across PHP, Python, and mobile/web platforms, overseeing the architectural vision and execution of initiatives company-wide. Key Responsibilities Design and implement critical backend systems, focusing on payment processing and authentication in the Wag backend application. Architect systems that facilitate collaboration across platforms and teams. Develop streamlined build and deployment pipelines, leveraging containerization (Docker, Gitlab CI/CD) and tools to boost developer productivity. Integrate AI-driven solutions to enhance platform quality and developer workflow. Define and manage the platform roadmap, ensuring key aspects like reliability, productivity, technical debt, and cost are addressed. Create bug detection and triage tooling and procedures. Contribute to infrastructure as code practices using Terraform. Establish and lead incident response protocols, incorporating observability and on-call tooling. Serve as a technical authority for essential backend systems. Mentor engineers in best practices related to infrastructure and platform management. Collaborate with the Security Manager to integrate security and compliance into platform design. Design the data engineering and analytics platform. Engage in on-call incident response for critical systems. Performance Indicators Code and App Quality: Monitor bug regression rates, app quality metrics, and overall platform performance. System Reliability: Track uptime and mean time to recovery (MTTR). Velocity Enablers: Measure CI/CD speed and developer productivity metrics. Technical Hygiene: Focus on reducing systemic debt and advancing roadmap initiatives. Cross-team Alignment: Assess the percentage of projects that adhere to established standards. Qualifications A hands-on approach, engaging in both planning and execution with a dedicated team. Extensive experience in backend software development. Familiarity with PHP and Python. Strong expertise in containerization (Docker) and CI/CD pipeline design. Proficient in cloud infrastructure design and maintenance, ideally within AWS. Expertise with Terraform or similar Infrastructure as Code tools. Proven ability to design reliable systems with minimal supervision. Experience leading cross-team initiatives and influencing technical direction. Solid understanding of reliability engineering, monitoring, and incident management. Exceptional communication skills to facilitate collaboration across various engineering teams. The national base pay range for a successful candidate is between $150,000 to $210,000. About Wag! Group Co. Wag! Group Co. strives to be the premier platform addressing the service, product, and wellness needs of modern U.S. pet households. Since pioneering on-demand dog walking in 2015 with the Wag! app, we have enabled access to premium dog walking, sitting, and personalized training through a community of over 500,000 pet caregivers nationwide. Additionally, we operate Petted, a leading pet insurance comparison marketplace; Dog Food Advisor, a trusted platform for pet food reviews; WoofWoofTV, delivering engaging pet content to over 18 million social media followers; and maxbone, a contemporary digital hub for pet essentials. For more information, please visit .

Created: 2026-03-04