Director of Engineering, Infrastructure

AI AT ZAPIER At Zapier https://zapier.com/about, we build and use automation every day to make work more efficient, creative, and human. So if you’re using AI tools while applying here - that’s great! We just ask that you use them responsibly and transparently. Check out our guidance on How to Collaborate with AI During Zapier’s Hiring Process https://zapier.com/l/jobs/ai-at-zapier, including how to use AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or others during our hiring process - and when not to. Job posted: 4/20/2026 Location: North America or EMEA Hi there! As the Director of Engineering for Infrastructure, you’ll lead several multidisciplinary teams building, supporting, and evolving Zapier's core services, platforms, and infrastructure. Your work directly enables every product team at Zapier to move faster and build better quality products. This is a leadership role with scope to build. Zapier is investing in platform engineering as a strategic priority, and you'll shape what that looks like: vision, scalability, accountability mechanisms, and how the organization operates. Many of the processes and systems your teams need don't exist yet. You will build them, partnering closely with our VP of Engineering and dedicated Platform PMs. You'd be joining at a formative and transformational stage. This is a build role where you'll be responsible for shaping the direction, not inheriting a finished state. We're looking for someone energized by this kind of work: someone who sees a growing, evolving organization as an opportunity to make their mark and shape what comes next. - Our Commitment to Applicants https://zapier.com/jobs/our-commitment-to-applicants/ - Culture and Values at Zapier https://zapier.com/jobs/culture-and-values-at-zapier/ - Zapier Guide to Remote Work https://zapier.com/learn/remote-work/ - Zapier Code of Conduct https://zapier.com/jobs/zapier-code-of-conduct/ - Diversity and Inclusivity at Zapier https://zapier.com/jobs/working-on-diversity-and-inclusivity/ ABOUT YOU You’ve built internal infrastructure platforms that engineering teams love to use. You've led teams responsible for cloud, database, and event infrastructure. You've built feedback loops with internal engineering customers that directly shaped your platform roadmap and investment priorities. You understand that internal platforms are products, and you've treated them that way: measuring adoption, gathering feedback, and iterating towards customer delight based on developer needs. You orchestrate AI systems and redesign how engineering work gets done. You fundamentally rethink software development in an AI-first world. You've used AI coding agents and orchestration tools (Cursor, Claude Code, Codex, or similar) hands-on and can demonstrate how you've applied them to transform your own work, your teams' output, and can quantify that impact. You have a concrete vision for how AI will reshape infrastructure and developer tooling, and you've already started implementing it by rethinking roles, eliminating legacy workflows, and reallocating capacity based on where AI is headed. You embed accountability and quality standards into AI-powered systems rather than lowering the bar for speed. You iterate, refine, and critically evaluate AI outputs rather than accepting first-pass results and expect your team to do the same. You are a builder, not just an operator. You've built teams and systems from the ground up, not just inherited and optimized them. You thrive in 0-to-1 environments where you're making hard trade-offs, retooling teams, and creating structure where little existed before. You have a track record of leading through organizational change and ambiguity, and you actively seek out those challenges. You are deeply customer-oriented. You have a track record of deeply understanding your customers—internal developers, external partners, and cross-functional stakeholders. You've built mechanisms to stay close to their needs and have used that insight to prioritize ruthlessly. You're empathetic to the expectations of Zapier's customers and the needs of our developers. You have scaled platform engineering and infrastructure organizations. You are a skilled engineering leader who has built teams responsible for internal developer platforms and the infrastructure that underpins them. You've shaped how product engineering teams build and ship software by investing in the foundational infrastructure and platforms. You've managed teams of managers and technical leaders, helping each be successful. You understand the infrastructure underpinning your platforms well enough to make sound architectural tradeoffs, but your focus is on developer outcomes, not infrastructure for its own sake. You've driven developer velocity and quality through platform investment. You've established data-driven approaches to measuring engineering velocity and quality both for your platform teams and for the product development teams they serve. You understand the incompleteness and necessity of purely quantitative metrics and bring curiosity to maximize learning from them. You've made the complex tradeoffs between velocity, cost, and functionality when building and supporting platforms. You have vision and mechanisms to track and improve on Keep-The-Lights-On (KTLO) and reactive work in favour of increased investment in proactive and platform improvements. You are a skilled mentor and coach. You have a passion and track record of developing engineers and leaders. You realize the best way to grow a team is by helping them grow themselves. You're able to effectively share your experience and provide clear frameworks for growth. You've developed the next generation of engineering leaders. You are a skilled communicator. You communicate proactively, write clearly, and know when async works and when to jump on a call. You lean on all of these tools to communicate vision, strategy, plans, findings, and results to engineering and the broader Zapier team. You champion efficiency and leverage. At Zapier, your work has a disproportionate impact on the business. You believe in systems and processes that let you scale impact beyond yourself and your immediate team. You default to AI-first thinking when approaching new work and have built personal and team systems (copilots, workflows, or automations) that compound impact over time. WHAT YOU’LL BE ACCOUNTABLE FOR This organization spans cloud, database and event infrastructure and platforms. Platform Vision & Strategy - A clear, shared vision for your organization that connects to internal developer needs and Zapier's overall strategy, with progress visible to leadership - Define and drive the strategy and long-term roadmap for your organization in collaboration with your teams and Engineering/Product leadership peers - Understand, measure, and articulate how your organization's work enables Zapier's product development velocity - Understand, measure and articulate how reactive and Keep-The-Lights-On (KTLO) work will be reduced in order to increase investment in high leverage platform improvements AI-Transformed Development - Define and drive the AI transformation of your organization, re-architecting how platform engineering operates, how KTLO and reactive work is minimized, not just adding AI to existing workflows - Identify and implement AI-powered tooling and automation that accelerates developer velocity and quality for the broader organization - Set the pace for AI adoption across your teams; model the behaviors you expect from your engineers - Build repeatable systems and workflows with AI, not just one-off uses; turn experiments into durable capabilities Developer Experience & Velocity - Unblock software delivery pain points specific to infrastructure through your organization's platforms, tooling, and partnership with product teams - Establish data-driven approaches to measuring delivery velocity and quality; work with stakeholders, peers, and engineering teams to own those measures and deliver ongoing improvements - Stakeholders and the broader org understand your organization's direction, tradeoffs, and results so they can plan and trust the platform Reliability & Operations - In partnership with service-owning teams, be accountable for the uptime of Zapier’s core infrastructure and take action if that uptime falters - Step in during major incidents at the director level by coordinating cross-functional resources and setting stakeholder expectations when severity demands senior leadership involvement Team Building & Talent - Teams that ship consistently and retain talent because the work is compelling and the culture supports growth - Managers and ICs have clear growth paths and the feedback they need to improve; you develop the next generation of leaders - Growing and developing your teams by recruiting, hiring, retaining, and mentoring - Own output and outcomes for your teams and the systems they own HOW TO APPLY At Zapier, we believe that diverse perspectives and experiences make us better, which is why we have a non-standard application process designed to promote inclusion and equity. We're looking for the best fit for each of our roles, regardless of the type of companies in your background, so we encourage you to apply even if your skills and experiences don’t exactly match the job description. All we ask is that you answer a few in-depth questions in our application that would typically be asked at the start of an interview process. This helps speed things up by letting us get to know you and your skillset a bit better right out of the gate. Please be sure to answer each question; the resume and CV fields are optional. Education is not a requirement for our roles; however, if you receive an offer, you will need to include your most recent educational experience as part of our background check process. After you apply, you are going to hear back from us—even if we don’t see an immediate fit with our team. In fact, throughout the process, we strive to never go more than seven days without letting you know the status of your application. We know we’ll make mistakes from time to time, so if you ever have questions about where you stand or about the process, just ask your recruiter! Zapier is an equal-opportunity employer and we're excited to work with talented and empathetic people of all identities. Zapier does not discriminate based on someone's identity in any aspect of hiring or employment as required by law and in line with our commitment to Diversity, Inclusion, Belonging and Equity. Our code of conduct https://zapier.com/jobs/zapier-code-of-conduct provides a beacon for the kind of company we strive to be, and we celebrate our differences because those differences are what allow us to make a product that serves a global user base. Zapier will consider all qualified applicants, including those with criminal histories, consistent with applicable laws. Zapier prioritizes the security of our customers' information and is dedicated to adhering to all applicable data privacy laws. You can review our privacy policy here https://zapier.com/legal/data-privacy. Zapier is committed to inclusion. As part of this commitment, Zapier welcomes applications from individuals with disabilities and will work to provide reasonable accommodations. If reasonable accommodations are needed to participate in the job application or interview process, please contact jobs@zapier.com. APPLICATION DEADLINE: The anticipated application window is 30 days from the date job is posted, unless the number of applicants requires it to close sooner or later, or if the position is filled. Even though we’re an all-remote company, we still need to be thoughtful about where we have Zapiens working. Check out this resource https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VzesvLsgVG2RDRPtGvBF8CbcB9ZA-Hsddg0P2ildBb8/edit for a list of countries where we currently cannot have Zapiens permanently working.