Senior Platform Engineer

Senior Platform Engineer

Are you an experienced Platform Engineer with passion for building next-generation data and AI platforms that help solve some of the world's most pressing challenges? The Gates Foundation is seeking a Senior Platform Engineer to help architect and scale a world-class data and AI ecosystem that powers breakthrough work across global health, global development, education, gender equality, and humanitarian response.

This is a unique opportunity for a highly skilled Platform Engineer with deep expertise in Databricks, Microsoft Azure, and AI technologies to shape the future of how data and intelligence drive global impact.

In this role, you will lead the design and evolution of a modern, enterprise-scale platform built on Azure, Databricks, and Snowflake, enabling advanced analytics, machine learning, and cutting-edge generative AI capabilities. You will help transform vast amounts of structured and unstructured data—including research reports, program documents, survey results, and field data—into actionable insights that accelerate decision-making and innovation.

You will work at the forefront of AI, leveraging technologies such as Azure OpenAI, Claude, Azure AI Search, and intelligent data services to build secure, scalable, and responsible AI solutions. Your expertise in Databricks and cloud-native engineering will be critical in creating high-performance data pipelines, AI-ready architectures, and API-driven platforms that empower teams across the foundation.

Beyond technology, you'll play a key role in establishing trusted, governed, and ethical AI systems, ensuring compliance with global data governance standards through platforms such as Collibra.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the architecture and development of a cloud-native Data and AI platform on Azure, Databricks Lakehouse and Snowflake

• Design and implement API-first data platform to enable secure, governed data sharing across teams, partners, and global stakeholders

• Operationalize GenAI solutions for knowledge discovery and decision support, including:

  • Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) architectures

  • Integration with OpenAI and Claude APIs

  • Semantic and hybrid search using Azure AI Search

• Create design patterns for document ingestion, parsing, OCR, metadata extraction, and enrichment

• Design and implement embedding and vector search strategies for unstructured data

• Lead the implementation of data governance and stewardship practices using Collibra, including:

  • Data cataloging, lineage, and metadata management

  • Data quality frameworks and stewardship workflows

  • Alignment with global privacy, security, and compliance standards

• Establish secure data access patterns (RBAC/ABAC), ensuring detection (PHI/PII scanning) and protection of sensitive data

• Build reusable platform services, APIs, and tools that enable self-service analytics and AI development

• Implement observability, monitoring, and evaluation frameworks for data pipelines and AI/LLM systems

• Optimize platform performance, scalability, and cost efficiency via FinOps dashboards

• Develop lightweight application for search and discovery, cataloging, and onboarding new datasets

Your Experience

• Bachelor's or master's in computer science or related field or equivalent experience

• 8+ years' experience in data platforms with a focus on advanced analytics, AI/ML Infrastructure, data security and automation

• Experience with analyzing and extracting insights from health and life sciences data (internal and external public repositories) using analytical and reporting tools

• Manage and drive improvements of a lightweight custom application (Data Portal) for self-service data cataloging, search and discovery

• Hands-on experience with:

  • Azure (Data Lake, Azure ML, Event Hubs, etc.)

  • IaC automating infrastructure provisioning using Terraform

  • Databricks (Lakeflow, Spark, Delta Lake, workflows, Unity Catalog)

  • Snowflake (Iceberg, Horizon catalog, Cortex AI, secure data sharing)

• Experience designing and building API-driven data platforms (REST/GraphQL, microservices)

• Experience working with unstructured data processing

• Familiarity with building data pipelines with Databricks and DBT Cloud and orchestration

• Familiarity with Docker, Kubernetes, and distributed systems

Additional qualifications:

• Strong understanding of:

  • RAG architectures, embeddings, and vector databases

  • Document chunking, indexing, and retrieval strategies

  • Previous experience with Salesforce would be a plus

  • Experience with document processing/NLP pipelines (OCR, entity extraction, classification)

  • Collibra and Data Governance

The salary range for this role is $157,400 to $236,000 USD. We recognize high-wage market differences in Seattle and Washington D.C., where our offices are located. The range for this role in these locations is $173,100 to $259,700 USD. As a mission-driven organization, we strive to balance competitive pay with our mission. New hires salaries are typically between the range minimum and the salary range midpoint. Actual placement in the range will depend on a candidate's job-related skills, experience, and expertise, as evaluated during the interview process.

Must have unrestricted work authorization in the country where this position is located. The Foundation does not provide immigration-related sponsorship for this role. This includes direct company sponsorship and any work authorization requiring a written submission or other immigration support from the company (eg: H-1B, O-1, L-1, E, OPT, STEM-OPT, CPT, TN, J-1, etc.).

As part of our standard hiring process for new employees, employment will be contingent upon successful completion of a background check.

Candidate Accommodations

We're committed to providing an inclusive and accessible hiring experience for all candidates. If you have a disability or medical condition and need an accommodation at any stage of the application or interview process—such as an ASL interpreter, alternative interview format, or physical accessibility support—we're happy to help. Please contact View email address on click.appcast.io with the position number and a brief description of your accommodation needs. Requests will be handled confidentially.

Inclusion Statement

We are dedicated to the belief that all lives have equal value. We strive for a global and cultural workplace that supports ever greater diversity, equity, and inclusion — of voices, ideas, and approaches — and we support this diversity through all our employment practices.

All applicants and employees who are drawn to serve our mission will enjoy equality of opportunity and fair treatment without regard to race, color, age, religion, pregnancy, sex, sexual orientation, disability, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, and prior protected activity.