Technical Lead, Cloud

About Aiven

At Aiven, our vision is to help developers and builders bring their ideas to life with speed and simplicity by providing a data platform that makes open-source infrastructure easily accessible to everyone. We are now embarking on our most ambitious strategic bet: building a new cloud offering for the agentic era, a ground-up effort built on open-source principles.

The Role

We are looking for a Technical Lead, Cloud to own the technical execution of this new product. This is a clean-slate build, you will take us from zero to a production-grade cloud running on bare metal and iterating rapidly toward a full AI-era cloud platform.

This is a small but ambitious team with minimal hierarchy and high autonomy. You are the technical leader of this team i.e. the person who translates vision into architecture, infrastructure and shipped product. The VP Strategy (Ville Lehto) acts as the overall leader of this initiative, setting the strategic direction and owns the business outcomes. Together, you form the leadership pair that makes this thing real.

Key Responsibilities

Technical Architecture & Decision-Making

• Own the end-to-end technical architecture for the cloud. From the management plane to the developer and agent-facing experience layer
• Make the critical build/buy/partner decisions for different layers of the stack (like object storage, inference, auth) and align trade-offs with VP Strategy for bets that carry strategic or financial weight
• Design for the future from day one: ensure the architecture supports the bold long term vision and strategy that you are expected contribute to

Execution & Delivery

• Build a high-performance, “no-ego” team of exceptional engineers and product builders
• Lead the engineering team (backend engineers, frontend, design, architect) with a relentless bias for shipping while contributing code yourself
• Own the roadmap and delivery milestones
• Operate with disciplined scoping and ruthless prioritisation, launch with what matters, proxy what can wait, and never let perfection block progress
• Work together with Aiven teams to ensure no misalignment emerges over shared architecture

Infrastructure & Operations

• Ensure the platform meets the rigorous security, compliance and certification requirements
• Evaluate and plan for the transition from rented bare metal to owned data centre infrastructure as demand scales

Cross-functional Partnership

• Partner with the Head of Public Policy to ensure our moat around sovereignty is reflected in the technology choices
• Work with the Marketing Lead to arm go-to-market with credible technical narratives
• Engage directly with design-partner customers to validate requirements and iterate on the MVP

Who you are

You are a principal-level engineer with the ability to operate in an early product environment like a founder. You have built and shipped complex infrastructure products, ideally cloud platforms, managed database services or developer tooling. You know what it takes to go from a blank canvas to paying customers in a short timeline.

You have deep expertise in distributed systems, cloud infrastructure and open-source technologies. You have excellent taste and conviction on how an AI era cloud should be built and the technical seniority to turn that into simple narratives. Experience with bare metal orchestration, storage systems and European infrastructure providers is a strong plus.

You thrive in ambiguity and move fast without waiting for permission. You are a high-energy individual with proven evidence of high-agency problem solving. 

Amazing! What’s next:

If you think Aiven is the place for you and that our Values align with yours, send us your resume and we’ll get in touch!

Global Benefits:

Our global benefits are designed to help you thrive and grow, personally and professionally:

• Participate in Aiven’s equity plan.
• Balance work and life with our hybrid work policy.
• Choose the equipment you need to set yourself up for success.
• Use your Professional Development Plan budget for learning opportunities.
• Receive holistic wellbeing support through our global Employee Assistance Program.
• Inquire about our Global Time Off Commitment (Parental and Sick Leave, as well as Personal Time)
• Enjoy country-specific benefits for our global cast.

How to Recognize and Avoid Employment Scams:

There has been a rise in fake job postings used by scammers to get personal information. At Aiven, all of our emails relating to recruitment come from an @aiven.io, @greenhouse.io or @eu.greenhouse.io domain and all of our interviews are conducted by video call or in person.  Our interviews will never occur via text or chat. If you’re unsure of the legitimacy of a job opportunity/offer pertaining to Aiven, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at [email protected].

Equal Opportunities:

Aiven provides equal employment opportunities to all qualified employees and applicants for employment without regard to age, gender identity, national or ethnic origin, religion, sexual orientation, physical and mental ability, marital and family status or without regard to any other similar personal attributes. Aiven complies with applicable local laws governing non-discrimination in employment in every location in which the company operates. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, training and any other terms and conditions related to employment.

At Aiven we are committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities or special needs in our working environment and job application procedures. We make all reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities or who otherwise need support to thrive in the workplace. We are committed to continuously improving workplace accessibility. There is an option to request a discussion in the application process but if you have any questions before applying please write to us at [email protected].

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