Director of Platform Engineering

Opala delivers robust, secure solutions to tackle the most complex data challenges faced by healthcare payers and providers. As a startup originating from a major healthcare plan in the Northwest, we combine deep health-tech expertise with top-tier data engineering talent to create products that our customers find meaningful and valuable. These products empower payers and their partners to find timely insights and take action to intervene in areas like value-based care analytics, interoperability compliance, and real-time streaming of clinical data. In this remote position, we are looking for a hands-on Director of Platform Engineering to lead our cloud infrastructure and corporate IT initiatives. This critical role will drive the scalability and reliability of our data focused healthcare SaaS platform while ensuring seamless corporate IT operations. As Director of Platform Engineering in an early-stage startup, you will not only manage teams and set strategies but also actively contribute to implementing infrastructure solutions. You’ll write infrastructure-as-code (primarily in Terraform), design architectures to support our data platform and services, and solve complex technical challenges alongside your team. Collaborating closely with cross-functional leaders in security, engineering, data and customer success, you’ll align cloud infrastructure and IT strategy with organizational goals and execute it with precision and efficiency. Our most critical interactions are with our own people. You will be an effective champion of our DevOps culture, fostering open collaboration across teams to make the right investments at the right time on the pathway to excellence. As a director, you will play a key role in mentoring and inspiring your people to grow their talent and passion for building a best-in-class infrastructure practice that has a real impact on healthcare. Key Responsibilities: Lead all aspects of cloud infrastructure and corporate IT operations while effectively partnering with our security, engineering, data, customer success and leadership teams. Architect and implement scalable, reliable, and secure cloud solutions to support the needs of our data platform and services ecosystem. Write infrastructure-as-code (primarily in Terraform) and guide the team in adopting best practices for automation and configuration management. Grow our investment in observability to effectively support our products and customers. Design and exercise effective disaster recovery and business continuity strategies. Ensure customers trust our reliability and performance while scaling our data and SaaS services with business growth. Collaborate with leadership and team leads to understand organizational needs and develop strategies that meet both technical and business goals. Promote an agile DevOps culture, ensuring sound CI/CD and a seamless developer experience that balances quickness to market with security and compliance team concerns. Establish and refine infrastructure and IT best practices, tools, and processes to improve operational efficiency. Act as a hands-on leader, actively contributing to solving technical challenges while mentoring and coaching team members. Qualifications: 8+ years' experience leading cloud infrastructure and IT operations in a SaaS and/or data product setting. 5+ years' experience building SaaS / data product infrastructure in Azure preferred. 3+ years' experience working for early-stage startups – must be comfortable with ambiguity and risk. Strong hands-on expertise with infrastructure-as-code tools (Terraform preferred) Deep understanding of designing and implementing architectures that support data platforms and service-oriented systems. Strong ability to drive decisions quickly, investing at the right level to meet delivery needs but step maturity forward, without over or under engineering. Strong ability to support security and compliance team requirements while balancing business productivity. Demonstrated success in mentoring and developing technical team members. Experience overseeing Corporate IT teams and keeping companies running smoothly. Excellent communication skills, with the ability to work effectively across diverse teams and stakeholders while comfortable supporting our customers directly. This role reports directly to the CTO and offers an opportunity to make a significant impact at the intersection of technology and business. If you’re a strategic thinker, a hands-on leader, and a DevOps champion who thrives in a start-up environment, we’d love to hear from you! Benefits: The Seattle base salary range for this full-time position is $173k-$216k. Our salary ranges are determined by role, level, and location. Within the range, individual pay is determined by work location and additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training. Benefits include medical, dental, vision, life and AD&D insurance, EAP, short-term and long-term disability, 16 days PTO, 8 paid holidays, fully paid holiday closure, parental and family medical leave, 401k, stock options and annual bonuses and salary increases based on merit. Diversity and Inclusivity Statement: At Opala, we believe that diversity and inclusivity are critical to our success. We encourage and value diverse perspectives and experiences, and we believe that they are essential for driving innovation and creating products that meet the needs of our diverse customer base. Opala is an equal opportunity employer and makes employment decisions on the basis of merit. We are committed to providing a workplace free from harassment and discrimination. We celebrate the unique differences of our employees because that is what drives curiosity, innovation, and the success of our business. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status, pregnancy, parental status, genetic information, political affiliation, or any other status protected by the laws or regulations in the locations where we operate. Accommodations are available for applicants with disabilities.