Senior Manager, Platform Engineering
Job description
We're seeking an experienced Senior Manager, Platform Engineering to lead our infrastructure software engineering team responsible for Marqeta's Kubernetes-based compute platform. This is a critical technical leadership role at the heart of our infrastructure, supporting the applications that process millions of payment transactions with ultra-high availability requirements.
You'll drive platform modernization, cost optimization, and operational excellence while leading a team of infrastructure software engineers who build and maintain the foundational systems that enable Marqeta's engineering organization to ship quickly and reliably.
We work Flexible First. This role can be performed remotely in the United States, only in one of our National or Premium locations, which you can review here.
The Impact You’ll Have
Leadership & Team Development
- Lead, mentor, and grow a team of infrastructure software engineers focused on Kubernetes platform engineering
- Build a culture of innovation, operational excellence, and customer-focused platform development
- Recruit top talent and develop career growth paths for team members
- Foster collaboration with application development teams, SRE, security, and other infrastructure teams
- Drive technical decision-making while empowering engineers to own their solutions
Platform Strategy & Modernization
- Define and execute the technical roadmap for Marqeta's Kubernetes compute platform
- Drive continuous platform modernization to support evolving business needs and scale requirements
- Champion platform-as-a-product mindset, treating internal engineering teams as customers
- Evaluate and integrate emerging technologies and AWS services to improve platform capabilities
- Lead architectural decisions for container orchestration, service mesh, observability, and developer tooling
Cost Optimization & Efficiency
- Develop and implement strategies to optimize Kubernetes infrastructure costs without compromising performance or reliability
- Monitor and analyze compute resource utilization, identifying opportunities for right-sizing and efficiency gains
- Implement FinOps practices including chargeback/showback models, budget alerting, and cost allocation
- Drive adoption of cost-effective AWS services and spot instances where appropriate
- Partner with engineering teams to optimize application resource requests and limits
Operational Excellence & Availability
- Ensure ultra-high availability of the production Kubernetes platform supporting payment processing workloads
- Establish SLOs/SLIs for platform reliability and performance
- Lead incident response for platform-level issues and drive continuous improvement through blameless postmortems
- Implement comprehensive monitoring, alerting, and observability solutions
- Balance innovation with stability through disciplined change management and deployment practices
SDLC & Platform Engineering
- Design and implement CI/CD pipelines and deployment automation for platform infrastructure
- Apply software development best practices to infrastructure code (testing, code review, version control)
- Drive infrastructure-as-code initiatives using Terraform and other automation tools
- Collaborate with security teams to embed security into the platform and SDLC
- Enable developer productivity through self-service capabilities and golden paths
Technical Environment
You'll be working with technologies including (but not limited to):
- Container Orchestration: Kubernetes, Amazon EKS
- Cloud Platform: AWS (multi-account architecture)
- Infrastructure-as-Code: Terraform, Helm
- CI/CD: Argo
- Observability: DataDog
Who You Are
- 8+ years of experience in infrastructure engineering, platform engineering, or DevOps roles
- 5+ years of people management experience, leading technical teams through complex initiatives
- Deep expertise with Kubernetes in production environments at scale (architecture, operations, troubleshooting)
- Extensive Cloud fundamental knowledge (AWS preferred, including EKS, EC2, VPC, IAM, and other core services)
- Proven track record of Kubernetes cost optimization and resource efficiency improvements
- Strong understanding of SDLC methodologies, CI/CD practices, and infrastructure-as-code
- Experience managing ultra-high availability systems (99.99%+ uptime) in production
- Proficiency with infrastructure-as-code tools (Terraform, CloudFormation, etc.)
- Hands-on experience with container technologies, service mesh, and cloud-native architectures
- Strong technical leadership skills with ability to influence without authority across the organization
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience
Nice-To-Haves
- Experience in payments, financial services, or other highly regulated industries
- Familiarity with PCI-DSS, SOC 2, and compliance requirements in cloud environments
- AWS certifications (Solutions Architect, DevOps Engineer, or Security Specialty)
- Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) or Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD)
- Experience with service mesh technologies (Istio, Linkerd, AWS App Mesh)
- Background with observability platforms (Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog, New Relic, etc.)
- Knowledge of GitOps practices and tools (ArgoCD, Flux)
- Experience with multi-tenancy and platform security patterns
- Familiarity with FinOps frameworks and cloud cost management tools
Typical Process
- Application Submission
- Recruiter Video Call
- Hiring Manager Video Call
- Virtual “Onsite” consisting of 4-5, 45-60 min calls
- Offer!
Compensation and Benefits
Marqeta is a Flex First company which allows you to choose your best working environment, whether that be from home or at a company office. To support Flex First, we calibrate pay to a competitive value according to working location. Compensation is aligned according to three tiers within the United States:
- National: A baseline tier that applies to most of the geographic territory of the United States.
- Premium: Slightly elevated from the National tier, and oriented toward a narrower set of higher cost-of-living areas, such as Los Angeles CA and Seattle WA
- Premium Plus: A tier for the most expensive working areas, like the San Francisco Bay area and New York City.
Visit this page or consult with a Recruiter to determine which tier would be applicable to you.
When determining salaries, we consider several factors including, but not limited to, skills, prior experience, and work location. The new-hire base salary range for this position is:
- National: $200,500 - $250,600
- Premium: $210,200 - $262,800
We also believe in recognizing the contributions of our people. That's why we award annual bonuses to eligible employees, rewarding both individual performance and the success of the entire company.
Along with monetary compensation, Marqeta offers
- Multiple health insurance options
- Flexible time off – take what you need
- Retirement savings program with company contribution and after tax contributions
- Equity in a publicly-traded company and an Employee Stock Purchase Program
- Family-forming benefits, fertility support, and up to 20 weeks of Parental Leave
- Free therapy sessions, financial and professional coaching, and legal advice
- Monthly stipend to support our remote work model
- Annual “development dollars” to support our people growth and development
- Through Flex First, the freedom to live and work wherever you and your family thrive
About Marqeta
Marqeta is on a mission to change the way money moves. We’re one of the earliest enablers of embedded finance, a market opportunity sized up in the trillions. Our card issuing platform provides unprecedented flexibility and control for companies to issue cards, authorize transactions, and manage payment operations in real time. Marqeta is powering the most well known brands in the new economy (Block, Cash App, Affirm, Instacart, Doordash, Uber, Walmart, etc). You don’t need to be a Payments expert to join the Marqeta Team, let us help you with that. This is the opportunity of a lifetime to work with innovators around the world and unlock equitable financial access for all.
Marqeta’s Values
– Solve for the Customer: With a deep understanding of our customers' business and empathy for their needs, we deliver products and services that drive their success. Earning and keeping their trust guides everything we do.
– Do What's Right: Knowing businesses and livelihoods depend on us, we pursue solutions that disrupt responsibly and deliver high-quality results that our customers count on. We own our work from start to finish.
– Simplify and Innovate: We approach challenges with curiosity and take smart risks. Innovation comes from finding better, simpler ways to achieve extraordinary outcomes.
– Win as a Team: We succeed together by embracing diverse perspectives and pushing each other to raise the bar. We lead with humility and set aside hierarchy to work as a team.
– Make it Count: We drive forward with focus and agility. With a sense of urgency and purpose, we get the job done, and done right.
Equal Employment Opportunity, Accommodations and Privacy
Marqeta is an equal opportunity employer committed to an inclusive workplace that fosters belonging. We do not discriminate based on race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, lactation, childbirth, or related medical conditions), veteran status or uniformed service member status, age, national origin or ancestry, citizenship or immigration status, physical or mental disability, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, genetic information (including testing or characteristics) or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. We also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements.
Marqeta endeavors to make reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities. If you are an individual with a disability and require a reasonable accommodation to submit this application, complete any pre-employment testing, or otherwise participate in the employee selection process, please submit this form with your specific accommodation request.
Personal data that is provided as part of the application and recruitment process is processed in accordance with the Applicant Privacy Notice. Additional information for California residents can be found here.