Platform Lead at Stellic in San Mateo, CA

Stellic is growing! We're looking for a Platform Lead to own the technical direction of the systems at the center of our architecture. We're investing heavily in AI capabilities, search infrastructure, and shared platform primitives — and we need a technical leader who can shape both what we build and how teams across engineering build on top of it. ABOUT US We're building a future where every student can move through their education with clarity, confidence, and purpose. Our platform transforms the student experience, giving them the tools they need to make the right decisions about their degree plans, track their journey, and build an education and career path that's truly their own. Stellic is a fast-growing startup backed by leading social impact investors, partnering with top institutions like Cornell, Columbia, UVA, and Ohio State to support over 1 million students across 7 countries. As we scale to serve more universities worldwide, we remain deeply committed to this mission, driven by our values, and committed to building a high-performance team that's here to make a lasting difference on both students' lives and higher education. STELLIC ENGINEERS Stellic engineers combine a rare blend of curiosity, creativity, and business acumen with the ability to deliver pragmatic solutions at high velocity with uncompromising quality. Our mission is to help students, and our engineers always have that in mind as they are building. THE PLATFORM TEAM The Platform team is responsible for building both foundational infrastructure and key product surfaces that power Stellic's core experiences. The team owns critical systems such as search, which underpins much of the user experience, as well as a growing set of AI-driven capabilities, including AI Analytics and the AI platform. These systems span both end-user-facing features and internal building blocks used across the product. In addition to owning features end-to-end, the team develops shared primitives such as workflow infrastructure and AI systems used broadly across engineering. The team is currently focused on improving the reliability and scalability of these systems, while continuing to build new capabilities that expand what's possible across the product. As a technical lead on Platform, your work will have broad impact across teams and the overall product, shaping both the systems we build and how other teams build on top of them. ABOUT YOU You've built scalable AI platforms and ElasticSearch-powered search systems at scale, and you understand what it means to create infrastructure that other teams actually want to build on. You think carefully about abstractions and interfaces, hold a high bar for quality across shared systems, and bring genuine ownership to everything — from architecture decisions down to code review. AS OUR PLATFORM LEAD, YOU WILL OWN - Search and AI platform: Own the technical direction and evolution of Stellic's search infrastructure and AI platform — from end-user features like search and AI Analytics to the internal systems teams use to build AI-powered capabilities across the product. - Shared platform primitives: Design and evolve shared building blocks — including workflow infrastructure and AI systems — used broadly across engineering. Your decisions shape how other teams build. - Quality of shared systems: Own consistency and quality across shared systems that have broad usage and impact across engineering. Establish clear patterns and abstractions that enable other teams to build on platform capabilities effectively. - Technical prioritization: Partner on prioritization of engineering-driven and product priorities, acting as a true peer to product leadership. - Engineering excellence: Drive engineering excellence by defining and mentoring on best practices, design patterns, and code quality across the team. TO BE SUCCESSFUL, YOU SHOULD HAVE - 8+ years of backend engineering experience operating at scale, with a track record of leading complex implementations as a technical lead - Expertise building scalable AI platforms that enable product teams to develop AI-powered features - Experience designing and maintaining ElasticSearch-powered search platforms at scale - Expertise building observable, testable systems at scale — you think about reliability and debuggability from the start - Strong ownership mindset and the ability to autonomously lead and drive complex implementations end-to-end - Experience with asynchronous / event-based architectures and strong API design skills - Clear and effective communication skills for collaborating with product, design, and customer-facing teams - Deep curiosity, customer empathy, and commitment to engineering as a craft — and a desire to mentor junior developers OUR CURRENT TECH STACK While we plan on introducing new technologies and capabilities, and potentially migrating away from current ones, here is the general shape of our current stack: - Languages: Python, SQL - Frameworks: Django, Angular, React, Remix - Databases: PostgreSQL, ElasticSearch, Redis - Version control: Git (GitHub) - Cloud: AWS - Deployment: AWS CodeDeploy - Observability & Analytics: Sentry, Grafana, Prometheus, PostHog, Metabase - Both single and multi-tenant architecture WHY YOU'LL LOVE WORKING AT STELLIC - Shape the future of higher education at a company leading the transformation of student success. - Work alongside an ambitious, mission-driven leadership team building something meaningful. - Own a piece of the journey with competitive salary, meaningful equity and a culture of excellence, speed and ownership. - Thrive in a flexible, outcome-driven culture built on trust and autonomy. - Exceptional benefits, including health insurance with Stellic covering 99% of your premium and 75% for dependents. - 401(k), commuter benefits, and annual international retreats in incredible locations. STELLIC IS AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER Our company values diversity and believes diverse teams make innovation possible. We encourage all qualified applicants from any race, color, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or other characteristics to apply.