Senior Lead Software Engineer - Developer Infrastructure

Job Description

Job Description

At Klaviyo, we value the unique backgrounds, experiences and perspectives each Klaviyo (we call ourselves Klaviyos) brings to our workplace each and every day. We believe everyone deserves a fair shot at success and appreciate the experiences each person brings beyond the traditional job requirements. If you're a close but not exact match with the description, we hope you'll still consider applying. Want to learn more about life at Klaviyo? Visit klaviyo.com/careers to see how we empower creators to own their own destiny.

About Klaviyo

Klaviyo is a leading marketing automation platform that helps businesses grow by delivering personalized experiences. Our mission is to empower creators to own their destiny. We believe in providing an exceptional developer experience that enables our engineering teams to build and ship high-quality software efficiently and with confidence.

About the Team

The Developer Infrastructure team at Klaviyo is at the heart of our engineering organization, dedicated to accelerating Klaviyo development. We build and maintain the tools and processes that allow engineers to maximize their focus on business objectives by minimizing time spent on build and deployment systems, foundational software "building blocks," and development environments. We are committed to fostering open communication and collaboration with our internal customers – the engineers.

As a Senior Lead Software Engineer within the Dev Infrastructure pillar, you will serve as the primary technical architect for our Dependencies and Platform domain while driving the overarching technical vision for the entire Dev Infra group. You will partner with leaders across CI/CD, Web Platform, Environments, Quality Tools & Testing and AI Enablement to ensure a cohesive infrastructure strategy, acting as a key technical liaison to the broader Core Infra organization. Your leadership will ensure that our core systems, dependency lifecycles, and platform upgrades are not just maintained, but architected to accelerate engineering velocity across the entire company.

What You'll Do

As a Senior Lead Software Engineer, you will have an overarching responsibility for the architecture, health, and dependencies for the Klaviyo code base with a focus on the backend. Your role will involve:

• Technical Strategy: Define technical strategy within the scope of the Klaviyo backend and execute to improve the area's architecture, products, infrastructure, and processes.

• Strategic Planning and Architecture : Define the technical vision and architectural roadmap for the platform, ensuring all upgrades and dependency management align with long-term business goals for scalability, reliability, and security.
• Dependency Management : Lead efforts to determine, analyze, and optimize backend and third-party dependencies, ensuring they are secure, performant, and reliable. This includes establishing frameworks for risk assessment and contingency planning related to dependencies.
• Platform Upgrades and Rollouts : Oversee and assist with the planning and seamless rollout of major software releases and updates, managing the entire lifecycle from design to deployment in production environments including significant individual contributions.
• Enhance Developer Productivity: Drive initiatives to improve platform cycle time metrics across the board, including PR CI Speed, Human Code Review Pickup Time, and Commit Velocity by Repo. This involves a relentless focus on reducing toil and increasing engineering efficiency.
• Mentorship: Mentor other engineers regularly, primarily experienced lead and senior engineers. Ensure others in the area are developing skills they need to improve within the organization.
• Problem Solving and Reliability: Act as a go-to expert for diagnosing and resolving complex performance, scalability, and reliability issues across the platform. Implement proactive monitoring and telemetry to identify and address problems before they become critical incidents.
• Cross-functional Collaboration: Partner with product managers, security teams, hardware engineers, and other stakeholders to gather requirements, resolve conflicts, and ensure alignment across all teams and projects.
• Continuous Improvement: Stay current with emerging technologies and industry trends, evaluating new tools and practices to identify how they can improve systems and internal processes.

Who You Are

• 12 years of experience in software development, strong knowledge of computer science fundamentals, domain-driven design, and extensive expertise in architectural patterns, specifically within the domain of distributed systems.
• BA or BS Degree in Computer Science, related field, or equivalent experience.
• Technical Expertise: Deep expertise in relevant programming languages (e.g., Go, Python) and cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP), containerization (Kubernetes, Docker), and Infrastructure as Code (Terraform).
• Technical Strategy: Demonstrated experience in contributing to the product and platform vision, as well as defining the strategy within the broader scope of long-term organizational needs.
• Architectural Skills: Strong understanding of software architecture, design patterns, and system integration, with the ability to define technical strategies and influence architectural decisions across multiple teams.
• Soft Skills: Exceptional problem-solving, analytical, leadership, and communication skills, with the ability to articulate complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• AI Enthusiast: You've already experimented with AI in work or personal projects, and you're excited to dive in and learn fast. You're hungry to responsibly explore new AI tools and workflows, finding ways to make your work smarter and more efficient.

Nice to Have

• Experience with specific tools such as Pants, FastAPI, Django, React, Terraform, Buildkite.
• Background in performance optimization
• Familiarity with complex data management for testing, including large datasets and production-like data replication.

Our Tech Stack

• Python, Django, FastAPI
• Apache Kafka, Apache Pulsar, RabbitMQ, Spark, Airflow, and other tech from the big data stack
• MySQL, PostgreSQL, Clickhouse, Redis
• Typescript, React, Babel, Jest, Webpack
• Graphite, statsd, Chronosphere
• AWS, Terraform, Docker, Kubernetes, Pantsbuild, Argo, and other modern DevOps tools

We use Covey as part of our hiring and / or promotional process. For jobs or candidates in NYC, certain features may qualify it as an AEDT. As part of the evaluation process we provide Covey with job requirements and candidate submitted applications. We began using Covey Scout for Inbound on April 3, 2025.

Please see the independent bias audit report covering our use of Covey here

Massachusetts Applicants:
It is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability.

Our salary range reflects the cost of labor across various U.S. geographic markets. The range displayed below reflects the minimum and maximum target salaries for the position across all our US locations. The base salary offered for this position is determined by several factors, including the applicant's job-related skills, relevant experience, education or training, and work location.

In addition to base salary, our total compensation package may include participation in the company's annual cash bonus plan, variable compensation (OTE) for sales and customer success roles, equity, sign-on payments, and a comprehensive range of health, welfare, and wellbeing benefits based on eligibility.

Your recruiter can provide more details about the specific salary/OTE range for your preferred location during the hiring process.

Base Pay Range For US Locations:

$216,000—$324,000 USD

This role may require up to 10% travel for purposes such as new hire onboarding, client or partner work if applicable, team meetings, and industry events. Travel is coordinated in advance.

Get to Know Klaviyo

We're Klaviyo (pronounced clay-vee-oh). We empower creators to own their destiny by making first-party data accessible and actionable like never before. We see limitless potential for the technology we're developing to nurture personalized experiences in ecommerce and beyond. To reach our goals, we need our own crew of remarkable creators—ambitious and collaborative teammates who stay focused on our north star: delighting our customers. If you're ready to do the best work of your career, where you'll be welcomed as your whole self from day one and supported with generous benefits, we hope you'll join us.

AI fluency at Klaviyo includes responsible use of AI (including privacy, security, bias awareness, and human-in-the-loop). We provide accommodations as needed.

By participating in Klaviyo's interview process, you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and will adhere to our Guidelines for using AI in the Klaviyo interview Process. For more information about how we process your personal data, see our Job Applicant Privacy Notice.

Klaviyo is committed to a policy of equal opportunity and non-discrimination. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, citizenship, national origin, color, religion or religious creed, age, sex (including pregnancy), gender identity, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, veteran or active military status, marital status, criminal record, genetics, retaliation, sexual harassment or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: Our company takes the security and privacy of job applicants very seriously. We will never ask for payment, bank details, or personal financial information as part of the application process. All our legitimate job postings can be found on our official career site. Please be cautious of job offers that come from non-company email addresses (@klaviyo.com), instant messaging platforms, or unsolicited calls.

By clicking "Submit Application" you consent to Klaviyo processing your Personal Data in accordance with our Job Applicant Privacy Notice. If you do not wish for Klaviyo to process your Personal Data, please do not submit an application. You can find our Job Applicant Privacy Notice here and here (FR).