Lead Data Engineer

Karbon is the global leader in AI-powered practice management software for accounting firms. We provide an award-winning cloud platform that helps tens of thousands of accounting professionals work more efficiently and collaboratively every day. With customers in 40 countries, we have grown into a globally distributed team across the US, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the Philippines. We are well-funded, ranked #1 on G2, growing rapidly, and have a people-first culture that is recognized with Great Place To Work® certification and on Fortune magazine's Best Small Workplaces™ List.

Engineers are expected to balance delivery speed with a strong commitment to quality, meeting agreed timelines while producing reliable, maintainable, and well-tested solutions. Sound judgment in making trade-offs between velocity and long-term sustainability is essential.

Engineering is collaborative by default. Team members are expected to contribute constructively in design discussions, reviews, and planning, communicate clearly about progress and risks, and support shared team outcomes in both hybrid and distributed environments.

Engineers are responsible for building new capabilities while maintaining and improving existing systems. This includes designing scalable solutions, reducing technical debt, supporting operational stability, and contributing to continuous improvement.

A high degree of autonomy is expected. Given clear objectives, engineers should independently translate problems into actionable technical approaches, proactively identify improvements, and continuously expand relevant technical expertise.

Ownership is fundamental. Engineers are accountable for the quality, performance, and customer impact of their work from design through post-release support, and are expected to follow through on commitments.

AI is reshaping how software is built, and we are committed to leveraging it as a force multiplier for creativity, impact, and capability. Engineers are expected to confidently apply strong technical fundamentals while embracing AI tools and approaches to enhance productivity, problem-solving, and innovation. Curiosity, adaptability, and enthusiasm for integrating AI into meaningful product development are essential.

Engineers contribute positively to a culture of professionalism, transparency, low bureaucracy, and mutual respect, strengthening team performance through authenticity, curiosity, and collaboration.

As a Platform Engineer on the Platform Team, you'll thrive in a diverse and dynamic environment working alongside seasoned professionals, including senior developers, tech leads, and architects. This role sits at the intersection of platform engineering and DevOps — you'll build and maintain the infrastructure, tooling, and automation that powers Karbon's engineering teams while driving continuous improvement across our cloud platform

Your primary responsibilities include hands-on development, infrastructure management, and operational excellence. You'll design and evolve shared platform capabilities that improve reliability, scalability, and developer productivity across the organisation.

AI is reshaping how software gets built — and we see it as a force multiplier for engineers. You’ll be expected to use AI tools effectively to accelerate development, improve productivity, and enhance engineering workflows.

• →Building and evolving shared platform capabilities that improve reliability, scalability, and developer productivity across teams
• →Designing, building, and maintaining CI/CD pipelines and deployment workflows using GitHub Actions to enable reliable, repeatable production releases
• →Developing and maintaining Infrastructure as Code using Terraform to provision and manage cloud environments at scale
• →Supporting and improving containerised workloads using Docker and Azure Container Apps
• →Building and maintaining monitoring, alerting, and observability systems using Datadog and OpenTelemetry to ensure production visibility
• →Driving cross-team platform and architectural improvements, proactively identifying and eliminating technical debt
• →Investigating and resolving infrastructure and platform-related issues, contributing to operational resilience and disaster recovery
• →Improving developer experience through tooling, automation, and self-service infrastructure
• →Collaborating closely with engineering and product teams to implement platform solutions and streamline developer workflows
• →Contributing to cloud cost optimisation and security fundamentals including identity, access management, and secrets management
• →Delivering operational support for the platform as part of a team on-call roster rotation

• 3–5+ years of experience in software engineering, platform engineering, DevOps, or site reliability engineering
• Strong proficiency in C#, .NET, and SQL, with the ability to design scalable, maintainable systems
• Experience building and maintaining CI/CD pipelines using GitHub Actions, Jenkins, or similar tools
• Strong experience with Azure cloud platforms, including Infrastructure as Code (Terraform) and operating production systems
• Experience with Docker containerisation and cloud-native application deployments (Azure Container Apps or similar orchestration platforms)
• Deep understanding of distributed systems design, including fault tolerance, scalability, and event-driven architectures
• Solid understanding of observability and production operations, including monitoring, logging, tracing, and SLO-driven reliability (Datadog, OpenTelemetry)
• Experience improving developer experience through tooling, automation, and self-service infrastructure
• Proven experience driving cross-team platform or architectural improvements
• Understanding of cloud security fundamentals, including identity, access management, and secrets management
• Good understanding of infrastructure fundamentals (Linux, Windows, DNS, networking)
• Experience automating workflows using PowerShell, Bash, Python, or similar scripting languages
• Strong foundations in software design, clean architecture, and engineering best practices, with experience using Git in collaborative environments
• Familiarity with a range of data storage technologies (SQL, Elasticsearch, NoSQL) and their trade-offs
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to collaborate across distributed, international engineering teams
• A proactive approach to problem-solving with a self-starter mindset that adapts well to changing priorities
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent practical experience

We build modern, scalable software on a thoughtfully designed stack:

• Frontend: TypeScript and JavaScript across Ember (today), React, and React Native.
• Backend: .NET / C# (Web API, .NET Core) powering distributed services.
• Data: SQL Server with performance and integrity at scale.
• Cloud: Microsoft Azure.
• Observability: Metrics, logging, alerting, and dashboards in Datadog — because we believe you can’t improve what you don’t measure.

Our architecture continues to evolve as we scale. We invest in event-driven systems, well-defined microservices, and containerized deployments (Azure Container Apps) to build resilient, decoupled, and high-performing software.

If you care about clean service boundaries, reliable systems, and shipping with confidence — you’ll feel right at home here.