Director of Platform Engineering

About the Role

We're looking for a Director of Platform Engineering to own and scale the infrastructure, security, and IT operations that power Clutch's platform. Clutch is a vertical SaaS company (backed by A16z) that provides white-label lending and account opening software to credit unions across the US. Our platform serves 163 credit unions, processes sensitive financial data, and must meet strict compliance requirements (SOC 2 Type II, GLBA, CCPA).

This role is the single owner of our cloud infrastructure (AWS), security posture, compliance programs, IT operations, and vendor management. You'll report directly to the VP of Engineering and work closely with the CEO, COO, and Legal on strategy. This is a leadership role where you'll define the direction, build the team, and execute with high autonomy.

About the Team

You'll lead a team spanning Infrastructure, Security, and IT. Today the team includes an Infrastructure engineering manager (Lucas Sousa) and his engineers, Security individual contributors, and a small IT support team. The broader engineering org is about 80 people across Brazil and the US, organized into five areas: Lending, Foundations, Security and IT, Account Opening, and cross-functional teams (HAL AI, Data). You'll work cross-functionally with every engineering team (they all depend on your platform), plus Finance (vendor budgets), Legal (compliance), and Customer Success (implementation environments). The culture is direct, accountable, and moves fast. We operate on a "You Build It, You Run It" principle and value completed staff work over escalation.

What You'll Do

Within 3 months, you will:

• Complete a full audit of infrastructure, security posture, vendor accounts, and IT operations. Identify gaps and quick wins

• Take ownership of all vendor relationships and complete account transfers from the previous director

• Establish your working relationship with every engineering team, Finance, Legal, and Customer Success

• Assess and strengthen incident response protocols and cybersecurity monitoring (Datadog SIEM, Cloudflare)

• Evaluate and stabilize IT operations, including support SLAs and the endpoint management program

Within 6 months, you will:

• Drive vendor rationalization. We have 30+ tools identified for review ($229K in immediate cuts, $1.2M under evaluation). Own the decision-making and execution

• Implement improvements to our compliance program (SOC 2 Type II, GLBA) and own the next audit cycle

• Optimize cloud infrastructure costs and performance across our AWS organization (multiple accounts, ECS Fargate, Aurora PostgreSQL)

• Improve sandbox and environment management for customer implementations. Credit unions need secure, reliable sandbox environments for onboarding

• Define and begin executing on the team structure and hiring plan for your org

Within 9 months, you will:

• Have a fully staffed and operating Platform Engineering org with clear ownership boundaries

• Advance cloud security and data protection strategies, including improvements to per-partner data segregation and encryption (AES-256, FIPS 140-2 Level 3)

• Lead a company-wide security awareness program and foster a security-first culture across engineering

• Drive automation and tooling improvements that measurably reduce toil for the broader engineering org

• Own and present the platform roadmap, including infrastructure scaling strategy for the next 12 months

What You'll Bring

Must-haves:

• 8+ years of experience in platform engineering, infrastructure, and/or security leadership, preferably in B2B SaaS or fintech

• Proven leadership experience managing infrastructure, security, and IT teams in a fast-paced environment

• Deep knowledge of AWS (ECS Fargate, Aurora PostgreSQL, IAM, KMS, S3, VPC) and infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, Terragrunt)

• Strong understanding of security frameworks and compliance standards: SOC 2 Type II, GLBA, CCPA, and ideally PCI DSS

• Experience owning vendor management and budget optimization at scale

• Exceptional communication and stakeholder management skills. You'll work with engineering, finance, legal, and customer-facing teams

• High-autonomy operator who brings completed work and decisions, not problems and questions

Nice-to-haves:

• Experience with Cloudflare, Datadog, Auth0, or similar tooling in our stack

• Familiarity with credit union or financial services regulatory environment

• Experience managing IT support operations with SLA-driven workflows

• Background in Zero Trust architecture and IAM strategy

• Bilingual English/Portuguese (our engineering team is primarily Brazil-based)

Please note that this role may evolve as our business needs change, so we appreciate your flexibility and adaptability.

What’s In It For You?

• Remote Flexibility: Enjoy the freedom of remote work from anywhere, balancing life and career seamlessly.

• Unforgettable Off-Sites: Twice a year, bond with colleagues in exciting destinations, fostering teamwork and fresh ideas.

• Paid Time Off and National Holidays: Enjoy 20 PTO days yearly and the National Holidays for relaxation and rejuvenation.

• Stock Options: Joining us means having a stake in our success, so you'll receive stock options as part of your compensation package.

• Home Office Setup: Create your ideal workspace with a dedicated budget for home office essentials.

• Work Trip Budget: Grow personally and professionally with a budget for work-related trips and co-working.

About Us

Clutch is a revolutionary vertical SaaS company, proudly backed by Andreessen Horowitz (A16z), aimed at revolutionizing the way Credit Unions engage and change the lives of their members. As a champion of financial well-being, we address the urgent need for affordable lending solutions in an era where the average American grapples with over $155,000 in household debt.  Unlike traditional financial institutions, Clutch develops software to turn Credit Unions into FinTech lenders and leverage their balance sheets to responsibly lend to over 130M Americans. Our mission extends beyond mere financial transactions; we strive to fundamentally enhance the way credit unions interact with their members. By integrating cutting-edge technologies and user-centric designs, we help credit unions provide seamless digital experiences that are on par with leading tech companies. This approach not only preserves but revitalizes the longstanding tradition of community and member-focused service inherent to credit unions.

Please note: This position is offered on a contractor basis. Applicants must have the necessary documentation and authorization to work in the country where the job is located. Clutch cannot provide sponsorship or assist with obtaining work permits for this role.

A Note About AI at Clutch
We love AI. We use it often and encourage our team to creatively and effectively leverage AI tools in their work. If you join Clutch, we hope you'll bring the same enthusiasm for exploring how AI can amplify impact, productivity, and innovation.

That said, during the interview process, we want to hear your thoughts. Please approach interviews without the use of AI tools—our goal is to get to know how you think, solve problems, and communicate. Once you're in the seat, bring on the prompts!