Lead Platform Engineer

Upwork ($UPWK) is the world’s largest work marketplace, connecting businesses with highly skilled professionals worldwide. From entrepreneurs to Fortune 100 enterprises, companies trust Upwork’s platform to access expert talent, leverage AI-powered work solutions, and drive meaningful business outcomes.

Upwork’s AI-powered platform has facilitated over $20 billion in economic opportunity for professionals worldwide. With professionals spanning 10,000+ skills, including AI and machine learning, software development, sales and marketing, customer support, finance and accounting, and more, Upwork empowers businesses of all sizes to scale, innovate, and build agile teams.

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As a Sr. Platform Engineer on the Platform Infrastructure team, you’ll lead initiatives that modernize our foundational infrastructure and elevate the daily experience of hundreds of developers across Upwork. This role offers an exciting opportunity to build scalable Kubernetes-based systems, streamline our service deployments, and directly influence the future of our microservices and AI/ML environments. You'll collaborate with peers across Developer Experience, Reliability, and ML Platform teams to deliver innovative platform capabilities that improve reliability, observability, and operational simplicity.

Responsibilities

• Lead modernization efforts across Kubernetes environments to improve scalability, reliability, and developer productivity
• Drive the transition from legacy infrastructure, reducing operational complexity and aligning with standardized deployment practices
• Enhance and expand the Backstage developer portal to unify CI/CD pipelines, observability, and service management tools
• Define and implement observability practices including metrics, logging, and tracing that reduce incident response times and improve system insights
• Partner with AI/ML teams to ensure infrastructure readiness for scalable model deployment and reproducibility of pipelines
• Design and maintain self-service templates, infrastructure blueprints, and rollout guides to promote engineering best practices
• Collaborate across platform teams to troubleshoot systemic issues and continuously improve service health and performance

What it takes to catch our eye

• Proven success managing Kubernetes infrastructure at scale, including use of service mesh technologies and GitOps workflows
• Experience leading migration and modernization efforts across complex, large-scale systems
• Strong knowledge of observability tooling and practices, including distributed tracing and SLOs
• Familiarity with machine learning infrastructure patterns, including model serving and monitoring
• A proactive, developer-first mindset focused on enabling teams through documentation, tooling, and streamlined workflows

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Come change how the world works.

At Upwork, you’ll shape the future of work for a global, remote-first workforce, creating economic opportunities for professionals worldwide. While we have a physical office in Palo Alto, we currently hire full-time employees in 21 U.S. states, making it easier than ever to join our mission from wherever you call home.

Our culture is built on trust, risk-taking, customer focus, and excellence, all in service of our core mission: to create economic opportunities so people have better lives. We embrace authenticity and inclusion, encouraging everyone to bring their whole selves to work. Personal and professional growth is a priority here, supported through development programs, mentorship, and our Upwork Belonging Communities.

We’re proud to offer benefits that go beyond the basics, including comprehensive medical coverage for you and your family, unlimited PTO, a 401(k) plan with matching, 12 weeks of paid parental leave, and an Employee Stock Purchase Plan. Visit our Life at Upwork

page to learn more about our values, working principles, and the overall employee experience.

Ready to help shape the future of work? Check out our Careers

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Upwork is an Equal Opportunity Employer committed to recruiting and retaining a diverse and inclusive workforce. We do not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, genetic information, or other legally protected characteristics under federal, state, or local law.

Please note that a criminal background check may be required once a conditional job offer is made. Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered in accordance with applicable law, including the California Fair Chance Act and local Fair Chance ordinances.

The annual base salary range for this position is displayed below. The range displayed reflects the minimum and maximum salary for this position, and individual base pay will depend on your skills, qualifications, experience, and location. Additionally, this position is eligible for the annual bonus plan or sales incentive plan and eligibility to participate in our long term equity incentive program.

Annual Base Compensation

$151,500 - $215,500 USD

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