Director of Infrastructure & Tech Operations

KODE Labs is seeking a strategic and experienced Director of Infrastructure & Tech Operations to lead and evolve the core infrastructure powering our innovative smart building platform. Our mission is to change the way people, buildings, and systems operate by providing the best technology experience possible.

As we scale globally and serve enterprise and government clients, ensuring the reliability, scalability, security, and cost-effectiveness of our cloud-native infrastructure (GCP, GKE) is paramount to our success. This role is critical for enabling our growth, supporting our development teams, and delivering a seamless experience to our customers.

WHAT YOU WILL DO:

Lead Infrastructure Strategy & Roadmap: Develop, execute, and continuously refine the long-term infrastructure strategy supporting global expansion (multi-region deployments), high availability, disaster recovery, scalability, and performance for our SaaS platform.

Drive Cloud Architecture & Optimization: Lead the design and evolution of our secure, scalable, and cost-effective cloud architecture on Google Cloud Platform (GCP). Implement and oversee robust monitoring, logging, and continuous cost optimization measures.

Mature Automation & IaC Practices: Champion and drive the full adoption and maturation of Infrastructure as Code (IaC) practices (e.g., Terraform, Ansible) for repeatable, secure, and efficient environment provisioning and management across development, staging, and production.

Optimize CI/CD & Developer Experience: Oversee and enhance the CI/CD pipelines, ensuring efficient, reliable, and rapid deployment capabilities for our engineering teams. Improve tooling and processes to enhance developer productivity and experience.

Ensure Platform Reliability & Performance: Implement and manage Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) principles and practices to improve system reliability, performance, observability, and overall operational excellence. Oversee incident management, root cause analysis, and on-call processes.

Lead Multi-Region Deployment Strategy: Oversee the design, automation, and operation of infrastructure deployment processes to support multiple data centers globally, effectively addressing data residency and latency requirements.

Embed Security & Compliance: Partner closely with the Director of Security & Compliance to integrate security controls and best practices deeply into the infrastructure design, deployment pipelines, and operational processes, actively supporting SOC 2 and FedRAMP requirements.

Manage Technical Operations: Oversee day-to-day technical operations, ensuring stability, performance, and proactive maintenance of the production environment.

Lead & Develop the Team: Lead, mentor, hire, and grow the DevOps/Infrastructure/SRE team, fostering a culture of ownership, automation, operational excellence, and continuous improvement.

Manage Budgets & Vendors: Develop and manage the infrastructure budget, optimizing spend and ensuring cost efficiency.

Collaborate Across Functions: Work closely with Engineering, Product, Security, and other teams to understand needs, align roadmaps, and ensure infrastructure effectively supports business objectives. Requirements

Proven Infrastructure Leadership: 8+ years of experience in infrastructure engineering, DevOps, or SRE, with significant demonstrated experience leading and scaling infrastructure teams and operations in a fast-paced, cloud-native technology environment (preferably SaaS).

Deep Cloud Expertise (GCP Preferred): Extensive hands-on experience designing, building, and managing large-scale, secure, and reliable infrastructure on major cloud platforms, with strong preference for Google Cloud Platform (GCP).

Kubernetes & Microservices Mastery: Deep practical experience managing large-scale Kubernetes clusters (GKE strongly preferred), containerization (Docker), and supporting microservice architectures in production.

Automation & IaC Expertise: Proven ability to implement and manage Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using tools like Terraform, Ansible, or similar. Extensive experience building and optimizing complex CI/CD pipelines (e.g., Jenkins, GitLab CI, Argo CD).

Strategic & Architectural Thinking: Ability to think strategically about infrastructure, scalability, reliability, security, and cost. Proven experience in architecting solutions for complex technical challenges.

Security Mindset: Demonstrable experience designing and operating infrastructure with security and compliance (e.g., SOC 2, FedRAMP controls) integrated from the start.

Cost Optimization Focus: Proven track record in cloud cost management, monitoring, and implementing optimization strategies.

Strong Leadership & Mentoring Skills: Ability to lead, inspire, mentor, and develop a team of talented engineers.

Excellent Communication & Collaboration: Ability to communicate complex technical concepts clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences and collaborate effectively across different teams and functions.

Educational Background: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience. Relevant certifications (e.g., GCP Professional Cloud Architect, Certified Kubernetes Administrator) are a plus.

Preferred: Experience supporting multi-region deployments, implementing SRE practices, managing databases (MongoDB, PostgreSQL, ClickHouse), and working with data streaming technologies (Kafka, RabbitMQ). Benefits

Competitive salary based on experience

Discretionary Bonus Program

Career Development Program

Comprehensive Health Insurance Package

Dynamic team and challenging projects

Flexible Paid Time Off

Welcoming and friendly work environment

Regular social events and activities

JOIN THE TEAM:

KODE Labs is a real estate technology company founded in 2017 with a mission to change the way people, buildings and systems operate. Headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, we are a driving force behind the adoption of smart building technology. To scale our presence across numerous cities and countries, we depend on our team of talented, ambitious people who go above and beyond to create value for our clients. We foster a culture of urgency, accountability, and impact.

When you join the KODE Labs team you can create your own career. Whether you have years of experience or are just starting, we help you realize your full potential and achieve your goals.

If KODE Labs sounds like the place for you, we'd love to hear your story, so please apply through our online application form. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

Location: Detroit, MI (Full-time, In-Office)