Director of Platform & Infrastructure

About Us Academia.edu is a venture-backed, for-profit, and profitable company based in San Francisco. We are recognized as the world’s leading platform for researchers and scholars to share work, discover research, and connect with academics globally. Our bold vision is to democratize and accelerate the world's research, enhancing the speed of scientific discovery and technological progress for the benefit of everyone. We imagine a world where accessing academic papers is effortless, keeping track of cutting-edge research is seamless and collaborating with researchers is easier than ever before. Our platform empowers millions of scholars worldwide to push the boundaries of human understanding. We believe in the power of knowledge to change lives and the world, and our commitment to this mission drives everything we do.

Join us as we continue to redefine what's possible in the world of research. Discover careers that challenge, inspire and propel you toward a future where your ideas can truly change the world. At Academia.edu, we're not just shaping the future of research—we're shaping the future of possibilities.

Please note that this role is in the San Francisco Bay Area. Our office comes alive on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays! Three times a week, our Bay Area team gathers in our office located in San Francisco's Financial District (580 California St) for All Hands meetings, collaborative sessions, innovation-driven brainstorming, and events that bring us closer together. Our space has everything we need—from cozy rooms for 1:1 mentoring and focused work to larger rooms designed for team activities.

About the RoleOur new Director of Infrastructure will lead an existing team of 6 Platform and Infrastructure engineers, grow the team according to the hiring plan, and own our Infrastructure roadmap and initiatives.

Our Ideal Candidate:

• Versatile Technologist: Manages and optimizes mature, stable products while integrating new solutions, ensuring smooth transitions and ongoing system improvements.
• Clear Communicator: Effectively communicates technical concepts and plans to both technical and non-technical audiences, ensuring infrastructure goals are aligned with broader company objectives.
• Effective Collaborator: Works with other technical leaders and the executive team to build trust and ensure all partners are aligned.
• Analytical Decision-Maker: Strongly prefers using data, metrics and rigorous, written analysis rather than gut and experience to accurately identify challenges and ensure that solutions are effectively tailored to address them.
• Impact-Oriented Leader: Prioritizes projects and initiatives based on their potential to benefit growth and stability, focusing efforts where the impact will be greatest.

Your Skillset:

• Technical Expertise
• Over 10 years of experience in SRE, DevOps, or Software Engineering, with leadership roles involving operating on public clouds like AWS, GCP, and Azure, with a strong preference for AWS experience.
• Proficient in managing large-scale web infrastructures, skilled in optimizing both legacy and contemporary systems, and well-versed in Linux environments and technologies like Docker and Kubernetes.
• Expert in dynamic web frameworks such as Ruby on Rails and Django, proficient in managing, troubleshooting, and optimizing a large, mature codebase.
• Comfortably advocates for a robust, well-maintained monolith architecture and empowers skilled developers with sharp, powerful tools.
• Experienced in utilizing tools like Terraform, Ansible, or Chef for configuration management and in automating cloud-based deployments.
• Highly adept at scaling and securing databases using SQL and NoSQL technologies.

Strategic Planning and Execution:

• Creates plans that turn big ideas from leadership into clear steps for the near and far future.
• Takes projects from start to finish, keeping them on track and within budget. Able to dive deep into details and operate at a granular level.
• Looks after system design, development, and operations, ensuring they work well now and can grow to meet future needs.

Team Management:

• Hire, grow and develop a team of 6 (and growing) Infrastructure and Site Reliability Engineers.
• Sets clear goals and manages performance, offering regular feedback to help team members grow professionally.
• Improves team dynamics and productivity by fostering a culture of high achievement and continuous improvement, and keeping work processes efficient.

Communication and Coordination:

• Explains plans clearly, making sure everyone from the team to top management understands what’s going on and why it matters.
• Improves teamwork, encouraging everyone to talk openly and align their efforts towards common goals.
• Keeps all stakeholders informed about project progress and important developments.
• Quickly handles problems, spotting any slip-ups early and sorting them out fast, while keeping everyone affected in the know.

What You Will Work On:

• As the leader of this department, you will direct new initiatives that are akin to the successful projects previously completed by your team. To give you a sense of the groundwork laid before, here’s a look at some of the key projects that have shaped our current technological framework, and some projects currently on the roadmap. In this role, you will guide your team through similar challenges and opportunities with a focus on continuity and innovation.

Operations and Systems Management:

• Use pgBackRest to improve our PostgreSQL backup processes.
• Upgrade and resizing Aurora clusters for more efficient utilization
• Transition system components to private networks to enhance security.
• Teach teams how to manage and report on their AWS spending effectively.
• Strengthen system defenses with AWS Shield and advanced firewall setups.

Development Environment and CI/CD:

• Include static analysis tools like Brakeman in our CI/CD pipeline to routinely check for security vulnerabilities.
• Refine our software deployment process to make releases more reliable and efficient.
• Enhance the reliability of the test suite to ensure higher software quality.
• Provide tools like DBLab to enable developers to use production-like data safely, boosting development speed and accuracy.
• Streamline development with containerized environments that mimic production settings.

Tech Stack:

• Ruby on Rails, Sidekiq
• PostgreSQL, Redis, Elasticsearch
• React + Typescript
• RSpec, Chromatic, Jest, Storybook
• CircleCI, Jenkins, Ansible, Terraform, Datadog
• AWS ecosystem (EC2, S3, RDS, Redshift, Aurora, and many others)