Engineering Manager, Platform

Job Overview

We’re looking for an Engineering Manager to lead our Cloud Infrastructure efforts on the Platform team. In this role, you’ll manage and grow a high-impact team responsible for the foundational infrastructure powering all of Valon’s products. You’ll work across all our production systems (compute, databases, storage, and networking)—ensuring our platform is scalable, secure, and reliable. We handle over 100mm background jobs per day and expect to scale >10x over the next 2 years. Some example projects on the roadmap:

• Adopt new data stores that support our growth: Vitess, Clickhouse, Redis.
• Scale our batch processing control plane for faster component creation and fulfillment.
• Production-equivalent sandbox environment for customer testing, demos, etc.

You’ll operate with a product management mindset, balancing near-term priorities with long-term platform vision. You’ll partner closely with engineering, product, and operations to define and deliver cross-cutting infrastructure initiatives. This is a hands-on leadership role—you’ll guide architecture decisions, write code when needed, and deeply understand how our systems work. You'll also be a people-first leader, focused on recruiting, coaching, giving feedback, and helping engineers thrive through 360° feedback and continuous development.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead a team of 5+ engineers focused on infrastructure and platform tooling.
• Own technical strategy, planning, and execution for core platform initiatives, with an emphasis on scalability, reliability, and security.
• Act as a strong technical mentor and hands-on contributor when needed—guiding architecture, writing code, and debugging systems.
• Collaborate with stakeholders across engineering, product, and operations to build infrastructure that unlocks product innovation and operational excellence.
• Establish and evolve engineering processes for continuous improvement, velocity, and quality.
• Invest in recruiting and developing engineering talent through coaching, mentorship, and ongoing feedback (including 360 feedback).
• Promote a high-agency, high-accountability team culture with a bias for action and clear communication.
• Advocate for technical excellence and pragmatic decision-making, grounded in deep system knowledge.

Ideal Background

• 4+ years of software engineering experience, with at least 1+ years in a tech lead or engineering management role.
• Experience working on infrastructure, platform engineering, DevOps, or cloud systems.
• Strong systems thinking and understanding of how backend and infrastructure layers interact.
• Track record of leading teams in fast-paced, high-growth environments.
• Demonstrated ability to mentor and grow engineers while fostering a high-performance, feedback-driven team culture.
• Excellent communication skills and ability to align cross-functional partners around platform strategy.
• Hands-on experience with cloud providers (e.g., AWS, GCP), containerization (Docker, Kubernetes), and distributed systems.
• A strong product mindset and the ability to translate business problems into scalable technical solutions.

About Valon

Valon is building the AI-native operating system for regulated finance, starting with mortgage servicing.

We're a Series C company backed by a16z, transforming industries that others have written off as too complex to innovate.

Rather than build on top of broken legacy systems, we took a different approach: we built and operate our own mortgage servicing business managing $110+ billion in loans. This wasn't the end goal, it was how we deeply understood the complexity needed to build software that actually works in regulated industries.

The results speak for themselves. We've transformed mortgage servicing from a 0% margin business into 60%+ margins while dramatically improving customer experience. Major enterprise contracts are now deploying across the industry.

ValonOS is our unified platform that makes every process structured and programmable and it is perfectly positioned for the AI era. When everything flows through one system with rich data, AI agents don't just automate tasks, they continuously improve entire operations. Mortgage servicing is just the beginning of our vision to transform regulated industries and beyond.

Engineering at Valon

Our engineering team powers a modern software ecosystem designed to disrupt one of the most outdated and heavily regulated industries in finance: mortgage servicing. We’ve built the foundation of a scalable platform capable of managing billions in assets with precision and reliability. Now we’re focused on scaling infrastructure, improving developer experience, and building high-leverage systems that support rapid product iteration and long-term business growth. We’re a tight-knit, high-agency group of engineers from Stripe, Jane Street, Meta, and Google, and we aim to do the best work of our lives—together.

Our headquarters are in New York City, with a new San Francisco office opening this year. We also fully support remote work.

Benefits

Compensation: competitive salary with a meaningful stake in the company via equity, and 401k plan. NB: The base salary range reflects multiple levels. We assess level based on a combination of past experience and interview performance

Health & well-being: we’ll invest in your physical and mental well-being with comprehensive medical, dental, & vision benefits

Commuter benefits: We offer pre-tax deductions for public transportation, rideshare services, and parking expenses to make your commute more affordable and convenient

Grow together: Company wide orientation for you to successfully onboard and other learning & development opportunities including regular review cycles that feature 360 degree feedback

Play together: quarterly budget for team building and social activities