Platform Engineer Jobs in San Jose, CA

THE ROLE:

THE PERSON:

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Technical direction for the unified build and release platform — from PoC architecture decisions through phased production rollout, you'll set the direction and be accountable for the outcome. You'll have senior ICs executing against that direction; your job is to make sure the strategy is right and stays right as the platform matures.
• Executive alignment on phased rollout — the transition to a unified platform cannot delay active product shipments. You'll work directly with executives and product line owners to design a rollout sequence that delivers value incrementally, identifies and mitigates risk at each phase, and builds organizational confidence in the new platform before dependencies on the old one are removed.
• Organizational change across firmware, kernel, and ROCm teams — unifying the build and release process for 1,000+ developers requires more than good tooling. You'll work with component team leads and engineering directors to align on new workflows, build the cultural shift toward shift-left development and trunk health, and get organizational buy-in at the right level.
• Tiger team leadership — you'll directly lead the senior engineers building the platform, including the Build Architect and CI Infrastructure Engineer. You'll keep them unblocked, make the cross-cutting technical calls, and ensure the build and CI workstreams converge into a coherent system.
• Code at ~50% — and mean it — for this role, this is a real commitment, not a line in a job description. You'll own meaningful parts of the platform yourself, not just review others' work. We're at a pivotal moment in the industry: agentic AI tools are genuinely changing what it means to be a technical leader, and the best engineering teams are being led by people who are in it alongside them. If you've drifted away from coding over the years but are ready to re-engage — especially with AI as a force multiplier getting you back up to speed — we want to talk. What matters is the commitment, not whether you've been shipping code every week.

• Sharpen your agentic AI engineering leadership — this platform has a scope (65+ firmware components, 1,000+ developers, multi-layer GPU stack) that demands agentic AI as a genuine force multiplier, not a productivity experiment. You'll be setting the example for how senior technical leaders use these tools, developing that capability in your team, and building an organization that moves faster because of it.
• Own a strategic area end-to-end — from PoC through production rollout, across build systems and CI, across firmware and kernel and ROCm, across the tiger team and the executive stakeholders. Full ownership, full accountability.
• Direct line to customer impact — the platform you build determines how quickly AMD can put validated GPU stack releases in front of customers. That's a board-level concern and you'll be the person driving it.
• Organizational change at scale — this is a rare opportunity to shift how a major hardware company builds and releases its GPU stack, with the executive support and mandate to make it stick.
• Open-source aligned — this work follows the same shift-left, trunk-health principles driving AMD's ROCm open-source direction, with visibility into AMD's most strategic hardware and software programs.

PREFERRED EXPERIENCE:

• Deep software engineering experience, with demonstrated technical leadership at the director or fellow level
• Deep technical range across build systems, CI/CD infrastructure, and software release pipelines — credible with senior ICs, fluent with engineering executives
• Track record of driving large-scale infrastructure or platform modernization across multiple teams with competing priorities
• Experience sequencing technical change in a way that protects active product commitments — you know how to be bold about direction while being careful about disruption
• Executive-level communication: able to frame technical tradeoffs as business decisions, build alignment across stakeholders, and hold accountability for outcomes at an organizational level
• Demonstrated ability to build and lead high-performing small teams in a greenfield or PoC context
• Fluency with agentic AI workflows (Cursor, Claude, Copilot, etc.) — both as a personal productivity multiplier and as a capability you actively develop in your team
• Experience with firmware, kernel, or embedded software release pipelines and their specific constraints
• Familiarity with GitHub Actions, self-hosted CI infrastructure, and cloud-based build environments (AWS)
• Experience driving adoption of shift-left development practices across large engineering organizations

• Master’s degree or PhD in related discipline preferred. Equivalent professional experience demonstrating engineering expertise will also be considered.