Lead Engineers - Platform

About the role

At Halter, we are dedicated to empowering farmers and ranchers to enhance their productivity and sustainability. Our innovative platform is crucial in transforming ambitious engineering ideas into tangible impacts for agricultural operations. As we expand globally, we need a Lead Engineer to guide the development and evolution of our platform, ensuring it remains reliable, secure, and efficient. This role is in shaping how our engineering teams interact with cloud infrastructure, developer experience, security, and AI-assisted engineering.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Spearhead the development of AI tools that streamline engineering workflows, enhancing the overall efficiency of the organization. You will be responsible for expanding our internal AI infrastructure to serve the entire company, establishing best practices and use cases that maximize its utility.
• Create and implement tools, guidelines, and streamlined processes that enable engineers to deploy their work safely and swiftly. Your efforts will ensure that our development paths are optimized for maximum productivity.
• Define the technical strategy for our cloud infrastructure as Halter grows internationally, making architectural decisions that balance speed, cost, reliability, and ease of operations.
• Integrate security measures into the platform from the ground up, ensuring that secure practices are the default for all teams. You will guide the implementation of identity and access management, network policies, and supply chain security.
• Maintain the reliability of our core computing and orchestration systems, ensuring they meet the daily demands of farmers and ranchers.
• Enhance our observability and incident management capabilities, treating on-call duties as an opportunity for improvement rather than a burden. Your goal is to empower engineers to identify and resolve issues proactively.
• Automate infrastructure management through Infrastructure-as-Code, continuous integration and deployment pipelines, and internal tools that minimize operational overhead.
• Facilitate cross-functional discussions on architecture and help establish and refine platform standards and practices across the organization, balancing immediate delivery needs with long-term sustainability.
• Mentor fellow engineers through design discussions, code evaluations, and sharing valuable insights to foster their growth.
• Participate in an on-call rotation, collaborating with a skilled team to address incidents and implement preventative strategies.

Requirements

• Extensive experience in building and managing AWS environments at scale, with a strong understanding of container orchestration, cloud networking, and Infrastructure-as-Code practices.
• Proven leadership in platform or infrastructure roles within a rapidly growing organization, with the ability to set clear direction across multiple teams.
• Background in backend product development is advantageous, as it provides insight into the needs of engineers building products on top of the platform.
• A solid grasp of what constitutes a positive developer experience, with experience creating streamlined processes that engineers prefer over custom solutions.
• A proactive approach to security in platform engineering, with hands-on experience in strengthening cloud environments.
• Enthusiasm for the potential of AI tools to transform engineering practices, along with a clear perspective on their benefits and risks. Experience in developing AI-assisted tools is a plus.
• Knowledge of how to design systems that are observable, testable, and easy to troubleshoot at scale.
• Excellent communication skills, capable of influencing and aligning teams around common objectives while promoting high standards of practice and reliability.
• Comfort with ambiguity, as many of the significant platform challenges may not have straightforward specifications. You should be adept at navigating uncertainty and making informed decisions.
• A collaborative spirit, with a focus on uplifting colleagues through clear communication, knowledge sharing, and humility.
• A genuine passion for your work, driven by the desire to make a meaningful impact and a commitment to continuous learning.

Nice to have

• Experience with AI tooling in production environments.
• Familiarity with agricultural technology or IoT systems.
• Knowledge of compliance and regulatory standards in cloud environments.

Skills & tools

• AWS, Infrastructure-as-Code, CI/CD, container orchestration, cloud security, observability tools, AI tooling.

Practical notes

• Halter is committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace. We encourage candidates from all backgrounds to apply, even if they do not meet every requirement listed in the job description. If you believe you would be a great fit for this role, we invite you to submit your application, including a cover letter that expresses your enthusiasm for the position and your interest in working at Halter.

Join our team

At Halter, we are proud to be part of a mission that genuinely matters. Our work transforms the agricultural industry, helping farmers improve their livelihoods and create sustainable operations. We are a team of talented individuals who thrive on solving complex problems and supporting one another in our endeavors. If you are excited about making a difference and tackling challenging issues, we would love to hear from you!