As a Senior Platform Engineer, you will be at the heart of Avant’s technical evolution. This isn’t a maintenance role; you will be a key player in designing and building the foundational data and machine learning platforms that power our products and analytics. You will tackle the dual challenge of scaling our core systems for the future while pioneering the practical application of Generative AI to create real business differentiation.
You will join a focused, agile team with significant autonomy and a mandate to innovate. If you are a curious, hands-on engineer who thrives on variety and wants to shape how a successful fintech scales its most critical capabilities, this is the opportunity for you.
What you’ll do at Avant
Build and Evolve Our Data Platform
Design and implement our next-generation orchestration layer, transforming it from a series of environment-specific instances into a unified, multi-tenant platform.
Develop full-stack internal applications (Python backends, React frontends) that empower teams with self-service UIs for ingestion, transformation, and delivery.
Enhance our MLOps platform to empower teams with self-service tools for the entire model lifecycle.
Evolve and expand our core data and analytics stack, working with technologies like Kafka, Databricks, Spark, dbt, and Kubernetes to make advanced capabilities accessible to everyone.
Collaborate closely with Data Engineering and Product teams to understand their needs, design robust solutions, and build the tools that accelerate their work.
Shape Our Approach to GenAI
Move beyond the hype and contribute to the practical adoption of GenAI, focusing on applications that deliver real business value.
Help define patterns and practices for building reliable, observable, and cost-effective GenAI systems in production.
Build safe and effective sandboxes for developers to experiment with new tools and features.
Why you’re a fit at Avant
Experience: 5+ years of experience in backend or platform engineering.
Technical Foundation: Strong backend development skills, experience building and deploying services in a cloud environment like AWS, and a solid understanding of infrastructure concepts. While our stack is Python-heavy, we value engineering principles over specific tool expertise.
Problem-Solving Mindset: You can operate at multiple levels of abstraction, from high-level system design to hands-on coding. You approach unfamiliar tools and patterns with excitement and a desire to learn.
Pragmatism and Agility: You are a practical thinker who can critically evaluate tools and ideas. You're comfortable building rapid prototypes and iterating on proofs-of-concept to find the best path forward.
Bonus Nice to Haves
Experience with our core stack: Databricks, Spark, Kafka, Airflow, Temporal, or dbt.
Hands-on experience with Terraform and AWS services relevant to data platforms (e.g., S3, EKS, MSK, DMS, Glue).
Familiarity with data engineering concepts or the machine learning lifecycle (MLOps).
Personal projects or a demonstrated interest in exploring GenAI or other emerging technologies.
Why This Opportunity
Build, Don't Just Maintain: You'll be creating new capabilities and evolving our platform, not just keeping the lights on. From our orchestration revamp to GenAI initiatives, there's significant greenfield work.
Career Growth: This role offers significant growth potential. We encourage our senior engineers to grow into technical leaders, architects, and mentors as the team and platform evolve.
A Culture of Ownership: We foster a proactive engineering culture where you are empowered to identify and solve underlying problems, not just treat symptoms. You'll have significant autonomy and the opportunity to influence major platform decisions.
Balanced Environment: Our team enjoys a hybrid work schedule (3 days/week in our Chicago Loop office) and a very quiet on-call rotation. We foster learning through team R&D time and company-wide hackathons.
This role is based on our downtown Chicago Office, located in the Merchandise Mart. We highly value collaboration and our hybrid schedule (M, T, Th in-office) enables flexibility to balance work and individual priorities.
Compensation Range:
The base salary range for this job is USD $135,000 USD - $165,000 USD /Year
Employees new to Avant typically come in below the midpoint of the pay range. The compensation range is based on the level outlined in the job posting, and compensation decisions are dependent on each applicant's experience, skills and abilities.
[If an outstanding applicant's experience and skill level is above or below the qualifications outlined in the job posting, we reserve the right to make an offer at a different level than the one listed in this job posting, which may have a different compensation range.]
This role is eligible for additional incentives, including an annual bonus. These rewards are allocated based on level, impact and performance in the role.
Our benefits include:
Choice of great Medical, Dental, and Vision Insurance Plan options
401(k) match
Flexible Time Off
Flexible Work Environment - (i.e. Mon/Tues/Thurs in-person)
Generous Paid Parental Leave, Adoption Assistance and Post-parental leave ramp-up program
Lunch Allowance (Fooda) and In-office Snacks
Summer Fridays
Fun In-Office and Virtual Social Events
And who doesn’t love the swag
Check out our Avant Blog!
We believe that a diverse set of backgrounds and experiences helps us create the most innovative solutions for our customers. We invite you to apply to our positions even if you do not meet 100% of the qualifications listed in the description. If you’re passionate about our mission and aligned to our values, we hope you’ll come contribute to our awesome culture.
Why Avant is the place for you:
At Avant, we believe our values make a difference:
Authenticity. We show up to work as our whole selves and make sure others can too.
Collaboration. We can only succeed when we do so as a team.
Problem-Solving. The harder the problem, the more satisfying the solution.
Customer. We are all owners of the customer experience.
Initiative. Plan. Adapt. Get Sh!t Done.
We believe that great ideas come from anyone and anywhere, that everyone is an owner who drives change, and that we have more fun when we work together. We're problem solvers who love collaborating with intelligent and highly-motivated people to reshape the face of digital banking. Avant offers terrific perks and benefits, fun social events with employees who actually like hanging out together, and a flexible growth environment where trying your hand at new projects and being the active owner of your career path is encouraged and supported.
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