Platform Engineer (from Junior to VP)

We're looking for a Platform Engineer to own and evolve our backend platform as we scale our creator tools and computational design capabilities. This is a high-impact role with significant ownership: you'll be the engineering backbone who ensures our platform is reliable, well-architected, and built to grow - while enabling the team to ship features rapidly and safely.

You'll build and maintain the Django backend that powers 3D geometry processing, algorithm execution, and manufacturing workflows - designing clean APIs, managing data models, and keeping our AWS infrastructure healthy. This is a hands-on role where you'll make fundamental technical decisions, establish engineering standards, and directly shape how we build software at HILOS.

We're open to a range of experience levels for this role. Whether you're an experienced engineer with 5-10+ years who's ready to lead platform architecture, or an early-career engineer with 1-4 years who's demonstrated rapid growth, strong technical depth, and an entrepreneurial mindset - we want to hear from you. What matters most is ownership mentality, speed of learning, and the ability to make good technical decisions under startup constraints.

Responsibilities

• Backend Development & Architecture:
  • Own and evolve our Django backend—building and maintaining RESTful APIs, background task systems, and data models that power the creator platform
  • Design clean, well-tested application code in Python with strong patterns for maintainability and team velocity
  • Build platform abstractions for integrating external services (3D geometry engines, ML inference, rendering pipelines, manufacturing APIs)
  • Architect systems that allow clean swapping of providers and independent scaling of components as requirements evolve
  • Improve coding standards and architectural patterns for the engineering team to follow
• Database & Data Modeling:
  • Design and maintain PostgreSQL schemas with proper indexing, query optimization, and migration practices
  • Work with product engineers to build data models that support current features while anticipating future needs
  • Implement backup, recovery, and data integrity strategies
  • Manage schema evolution using Django migrations across dev, staging, and production environments
• DevOps & Infrastructure:
  • Manage and improve our GCP/Azure/AWS infrastructure—keeping services running, deployments smooth, and costs under control
  • Own and evolve CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions) for testing and deploying the Django application
  • Implement infrastructure-as-code practices (Terraform preferred) for AWS resource management
  • Maintain environment parity across dev, staging, and production
  • Manage secrets, environment configuration, and deployment automation
  • Establish practices that allow other engineers to safely make infrastructure changes independently
• Async Processing & Computational Workloads:
  • Build and maintain async job processing infrastructure (Celery, Redis, or similar) for computationally intensive workloads—3D model processing, algorithm execution, and batch operations
  • Design proper queuing, retry logic, dead letter handling, and job status visibility
  • Translate research prototypes from our Lab into production-ready systems
• Monitoring & Reliability:
  • Implement monitoring, logging, and alerting that catch issues before they impact creators
  • Maintain dashboards that provide visibility into system health and business-critical workflows
  • Ensure high uptime for creator-facing services through proactive monitoring and incident response
  • Document architecture, data flows, and operational procedures to enable team autonomy
• Technical Decision-Making & Strategy:
  • Drive build-vs-buy decisions for platform services, third-party integrations, and tooling
  • Balance startup constraints (cost, time-to-market, team size) with technical excellence and future scalability
  • Make pragmatic architectural choices that serve a small, fast-moving team
• Team Enablement & Knowledge Sharing:
  • Lead the team on API design, backend best practices, and deployment workflows
  • Mentor other engineers on Python/Django patterns, testing, and operational practices
  • Foster a culture of ownership, reliability, and continuous improvement

Qualifications

• Production Python experience with Django expertise building backend services and RESTful APIs
• Understanding of relational database design and optimization (PostgreSQL preferred), including schema design, indexing, migrations, and query performance
• Familiarity with async task processing systems (Celery, Redis, or similar) for handling background jobs and computational workloads
• Working knowledge of AWS/GCP/Azure services - enough to manage deployments, troubleshoot infrastructure issues, and make informed decisions about service choices
• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions preferred), containerization (Docker), and basic infrastructure-as-code practices
• Strong system design instincts - ability to create clean abstractions, evaluate tradeoffs, and make pragmatic technical decisions under startup constraints
• Experience integrating third-party APIs and external services into a backend platform
• Proven ability to quickly learn new domains and technologies, with examples of ramping up on unfamiliar systems or specialized technical domains
• Strong written and verbal communication skills with ability to explain technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders and document architectural decisions

For early-career candidates (1-4 years): We value rapid growth trajectory, side projects or open source contributions that demonstrate depth beyond your years, entrepreneurial experience (launched your own apps, freelance projects, or startups), and the ability to own and ship end-to-end. Show us you punch above your weight.

Nice to Have

• Experience with Django REST Framework, Django Channels, or other Django ecosystem tools
• Deeper AWS experience (ECS/Fargate, RDS/Aurora, Lambda, CloudFormation/Terraform)
• Experience with 3D geometry processing, computational design tools, or graphics pipelines
• Background in ML infrastructure, model serving, or ML pipeline orchestration
• Prior startup experience (especially at early stage) with evidence of high impact in lean team environments
• Knowledge of manufacturing or supply chain systems and integrations
• Contributions to open source Python or Django projects
• Experience with frontend technologies (React, TypeScript) and comfort working across the full stack

What We Offer

• Creative, collaborative work environment at the intersection of design and technology
• Opportunity to shape the future of footwear design and manufacturing
• Fast-paced startup environment with significant ownership and impact
• Direct influence on technical architecture and engineering culture in a rapidly growing platform
• Competitive compensation and equity
• Based in Portland's creative Old Town district

Location: Portland, Oregon (on-site collaboration with flexibility)