Director, Platform Engineering

Thinkific is a learning commerce platform. We unite community, courses, and content with commerce, so experts and teams can create transformative learning experiences to grow their revenue. We build products that create impact and raise the bar on what’s possible through online learning.

 Our team of 275+ Thinkers supports customers around the globe while working collaboratively to learn, grow, and succeed together. Join us to see how we’re building one of the best workplaces in Canadian tech!

We believe every candidate should have a fair, inclusive, and overall great experience when exploring a new role with Thinkific. That starts with outlining our hiring process so you know what to expect every step of the way—click here to learn more: https://thnk.cc/whattoexpect

Are you an experienced Engineering Director with a track record of leading infrastructure-focused teams? We’re looking for a Director, Platform Engineering to join us at Thinkific.

As the Director, Platform Engineering, you’ll lead, guide, and mentor Platform teams responsible for advancing and maintaining Thinkific’s core platform functionality—ensuring systems-wide performance, reliability, and scalability. Reporting to the VP, Engineering, you’ll collaborate with Team Leads, Managers, Architects, and Principal Engineers to drive Thinkific’s platform strategy and technical evolution. You’ll play a key role in setting direction, empowering your teams, and supporting the growth and development of Engineering leaders through coaching and mentorship.

Your goal will be to set the strategic direction and objectives for our Platform teams, ensuring they deliver a resilient, efficient, and innovative technical foundation for the company. Here’s how you’ll accomplish this:

• Guide Engineering leaders in developing and executing quarterly Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) that align with Thinkific’s overarching multi-year strategy
• Lead, mentor, and develop an exceptional team of Engineering Managers and Technical Leads across our core services, site platform, and technical operations
• Collaborate with Engineering leadership to mature and optimize key processes such as on-call, production reporting, and risk mitigation
• Define and oversee the multi-year strategy for Thinkific’s technical foundation—including infrastructure, delivery pipelines, and core services—with a focus on global scalability and resilience
• Manage and optimize the engineering budget for Platform initiatives; partner with Finance on vendor relationships, cloud cost management, and forecasting
• Champion the product and platform lifecycle from strategic concept through to go-live, ensuring alignment with business objectives
• Recommend and implement new architectural patterns, technologies, and tools to improve developer velocity and platform stability
• Continue to grow our Engineering organization by recruiting and retaining top technical talent
• Track and report on technical R&D initiatives (such as SR&ED or IRAP) to ensure compliance and documentation requirements are met

The person we have in mind likely:

• Has 5+ years of leadership experience in software engineering, including 3+ years leading Platform Engineering or Technical Operations teams
• Is experienced in developing and executing strategies across complex technical domains
• Demonstrates strong relationship-building and leadership skills, fostering cohesive, high-performing teams and handling challenges with confidence and empathy
• Effectively manages complex, cross-functional projects and brings proven experience in project management, problem-solving, and change management
• Excels at collaboration and influence, bringing people on board with ideas across diverse teams
• Loves to learn and grow. They’ve found (and keep looking for) ways to level up their skills in this field, whether that’s through formal education, gaining professional experience, or maybe even building their own business

These things would also be nice, but we think you could learn them on the job:

• Experience with common SaaS software stacks (Ruby on Rails, Golang, Node.js)
• Experience managing cloud hosting environments (AWS, Kubernetes, PostgreSQL, Fastly)
• Experience building strategy for infrastructure, delivery pipelines, QA, and shared services
• Proven ability to design scalable, reliable, and maintainable architectures
• A strong network of A-players to support recruiting and people development
• Experience working within—or helping build—a large (50+) Engineering organization

We’re committed to fair and transparent pay that reflects both where you are and where you can grow to. This role has a salary range of $214,500 – $268,100 – $300,000 in Canada, designed to capture the full journey from developing skills to excelling in the position. Most new hires start between the minimum and midpoint, which aligns with being fully capable in the role. Salaries above the midpoint are typically reserved for team members who have demonstrated strong, consistent performance, deep expertise, and a significant positive impact within the role.

For high-demand or hard-to-fill positions like this one, we may hire above midpoint for candidates who bring exceptional experience, skills, or impact potential.

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging & Accessibility

This is just our initial idea of who we’re looking for! At Thinkific, we know that people have unique career journeys. If your experience is close to what we’ve described but you feel that you might be missing a few of the requirements, please still apply! We believe in equal opportunity and are committed to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging across every facet of our business.

We’re also committed to providing a comfortable and accessible interview experience for every candidate. If there are any accommodations our team can make throughout our hiring process (big or small), please let us know.

What you can expect if you join Thinkific:

👏 An amazing team of talented, passionate, and kind Thinkers. Together, we’ve built an amazing, award-winning culture—we’re a Certified Great Place to Work and one of Canada's Top Small & Medium Employers!

🚀 The chance to build, improve, and innovate on a platform that’s driving positive impact for thousands of businesses and millions of students around the world.

💸 A competitive compensation package including base salary, equity, team-wide bonuses, and an Employee Share Purchase Plan.

🌴Flexible Paid Time Off to maintain mental and physical health. Our team is encouraged to take a minimum 4 weeks of vacation, plus Thinker Holidays (extended long weekends in the summer) and time off for the December holiday season.

🩺 Health Benefits and Wellness: Comprehensive benefits starting on Day 1 include health, vision, and dental coverage for you and your family, $3,000 for mental health care, a short-term health plan, and an additional health or personal spending account. Plus, family friendly benefits include generous parental leave top-ups for up to 32 weeks, as well as fertility coverage and personalized return to work options. 

💻 Flexible Work. Choose to work from home from anywhere in Canada, at our Vancouver HQ, a co-working space, or anywhere there’s wifi for a change of scenery.

⬆️ Learning & Growth. An annual $1500 USD Learn and Grow fund for conferences, seminars, or courses, plus training, mentorship, coaching, and internal promotion opportunities.

🏡 A home office setup so you’re ready to succeed with a company-owned Macbook Pro and a budget to order a desk, chair, or any accessories to help you work comfortably and productively. 

💙 A place where you can bring your whole self to work. We know that different perspectives lead to amazing ideas, more innovation, and, ultimately, our success as a company. We welcome applicants of all backgrounds, experiences, beliefs, identities, and statuses. Whoever you are—we can't wait to meet you!

The Thinkific Vancouver office operates on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and Sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations of the Coast Salish People.  We encourage everyone to learn more about the original caretakers of the land that you currently occupy.