Associate Director of Platform Engineering

Position Summary The Associate Director of Platform Engineering leads EFF’s Platform Engineering team, responsible for the organization's web and cloud infrastructure and the systems that deliver EFF’s public-facing services. They own the reliability, security, and scalability of EFF’s websites, applications, and cloud deployments, and manage the team of web developers and cloud and operations engineers who build and run them. Essential Functions Management Supervise direct reports, ensuring sustainable workloads, goals and expectations are met, and effective collaboration with other teams and colleagues. Provide candid feedback to direct reports about where they need to grow as well as where they are excelling, including through weekly one-on-ones and annual reviews. Collaborate with Director of Technical Services to maintain high standards of performance. Document performance issues and manage them promptly, including escalating to Director of Technical Services and HR where appropriate. Coordinate resources and priorities with the Associate Director of IT and Infrastructure, including a shared roadmap, on-call rotation, and project staffing. Coordinate with other EFF teams on priorities, timelines and resources, and help manage any potential conflicts with your team's priorities. Ensure transparency by keeping EFF staff informed about your team’s activities, directing them to relevant staff or teams, and facilitating communication and problem-solving when necessary. Proactively identify and address potential challenges that could impede the team’s target goals. Foster a proactive approach to problem-solving and ensure a smooth workflow. Technical leadership and execution Lead the work on EFF’s web and cloud platforms: keeping EFF’s websites, applications, and services up, and making sure the team has good systems for deployment, monitoring, incident response, and security across our cloud environments. Lead application development for EFF’s web platform, including the EFF.org migration and the Donate app, working closely with Design. Propose and oversee budgets and timelines for projects, approve expenses within budgetary authority and request quotes. Set platform standards and practices together with the technology team, including CI/CD, infrastructure-as-code, observability, and secure development, so services are deployed and run consistently no matter who works on them. Take part in the team’s shared on-call rotation, lead the response to incidents involving web and cloud services, and run post-incident reviews with everyone involved. Engage in regular review of EFF's web and cloud systems, identify problems, devise strategies, and propose solutions. Seek out and propose recommended changes and upgrades to increase the efficiency of the teams and systems and the level of service that staff and the public receive. Qualities We’re Seeking (i.e. Competencies) Empathetic, with ability to understand and incorporate other team members' points of view Able to give and receive feedback with professionalism and care Ability to communicate and engage with EFF staff on the topics of our work and advocacy Navigates turbulence with a steady hand and sharp focus, particularly during outages and security incidents Demonstrates care and respect toward coworkers, outside partners, members of the public, donors, and others with whom this role interacts; Works to positively and collaboratively resolve conflicts and overcome challenges Available and responsive to colleagues, outside partners and others over email, phone, and online chat, with the ability to respond reliably to time-sensitive requests for assistance and opportunities during agreed upon working hours; Contributes to the creation of a diverse, equitable and inclusive work culture that encourages and celebrates differences including race, ethnicity, age, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, religion, disability and socio-economic circumstance. Ability to work with a diverse group of stakeholders, both inside and outside the organization; Strong analytical and interpersonal skills An ability to manage and prioritize work in a complex environment with multiple simultaneous projects Required Education & Experience At least 5 years of information technology experience, with increasing levels of responsibility and management Relevant experience with web infrastructure, cloud platforms (e.g. AWS, GCP, Azure), and platform or site-reliability engineering Relevant experience leading a technical or engineering team preferably including application developers. Excellent communication and facilitation skills Experience with infrastructure-as-code, CI/CD, and modern observability tooling Familiarity with non-profit operations and working within a unionized environment Compensation: $145,000 to $153,900 DOE Classification : Exempt, Full-time (typically 40 hours/week) Expected hours of work: Typically, Monday - Friday. Occasional after-hour duties as needed to address high-priority issues such as outages and other unscheduled service disruptions or to conduct work that requires downtime for critical systems. Reports to : Director of Technical Services Supervisory Responsibilities: Supervises the web developers and engineers on the Technology & Design team. Physical Demands: This job is mostly sedentary and requires long periods of time at a computer. Location: This is a full-time position at EFF’s offices in San Francisco, but a hybrid work schedule is possible. Travel: EFF hosts up to two all-staff retreats in the Bay Area annually, and all staff are expected to attend. Otherwise, frequent travel is not required for this position. Commitment to Diversity As an advocacy organization, EFF is committed to being part of a diverse community. Diversity of life experiences makes a big difference in how we identify and litigate legal issues, design privacy-enhancing software, and organize our activism. To that end, we deliberately seek applicants with different perspectives, identities, and experiences to build an inclusive workplace to better inform our advocacy and defense of freedom in our digital world. EFF is an equal opportunity employer and encourages people of all races, genders, ages, abilities, orientations, ethnicities, and national origins to apply. Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.