Senior Manager, Platform Engineering

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