Platform Engineering Lead

About Us:

CenExel Clinical Research, Inc. ("CenExel") is a leading nationwide clinical research site and patient network serving the life sciences industry. Leading in CNS and early phase studies, our 18 science-led Centers of Excellence deliver the right patients, at the right time, in the right place. Recently acquired by BayPine Capital Partners, our research sites provide unparalleled medical and scientific support in the design and execution of clinical trials. Our world-class PIs, advanced patient engagement strategies, premium data analytics, and integrated operations optimize every step of the clinical trial process.
Along with an exceptional work environment that promotes teamwork, positive leadership, and optimal work-life balance, CenExel Clinical Research also provides highly competitive compensation and a generous benefits package to full time employees after 30 days of employment including Health Insurance, Dental, Vision, LTD, STD, Life Ins, and 401k.

Job Summary:

This US-based, hands-on leader will build and lead a small, distributed Platform and Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) team, including one or two engineers based overseas. Reporting directly to the CTO, the role owns the full lifecycle of shared platform and software-delivery capabilities—from discovery and prioritization through implementation, adoption, operations, and continuous improvement. By providing shared services, standards, tooling, automation, and SRE practices, this leader will enable engineering teams to deliver reliable software efficiently while allowing the VP of Engineering to focus on engineering leadership and product delivery.

The role works closely with the VP of IT Operations, who leads infrastructure systems and the service desk, to establish clear operational responsibilities. SRE resides within the platform team, while application ownership remains with the engineering teams. On-call coverage and incident-management responsibilities are defined collaboratively with engineering leaders and IT Operations.

Essential Responsibilities and Duties:

• Builds trusted partnerships with engineering teams, observes their workflows, and uses developer feedback to translate recurring friction into shared capabilities and measurable improvements.
• Owns the full lifecycle of shared platform and software-delivery capabilities—from discovery and prioritization through implementation, adoption, operations, and continuous improvement—allowing the VP of Engineering to focus on engineering leadership and product delivery.
• Develops and manages a focused, outcome-driven roadmap spanning delivery tooling, cloud foundations, reusable services, reliability, and developer experience. Makes pragmatic build-versus-buy decisions appropriate for a small team.
• Creates reusable, self-service capabilities that enable teams to deliver safely and independently, with appropriate controls embedded in tools, workflows, and automation.
• Owns continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD), release automation, deployment and rollback capabilities, shared testing platforms, and standards for source-code repositories and branching.
• Defines code-review expectations and implements automated quality gates, including branch protections, static analysis, dependency and security scanning, build validation, and automated testing.
• Owns cloud platform foundations, infrastructure as code, environment provisioning, secrets and artifact management, shared integration infrastructure, and reusable technical services.
• Establishes SRE practices for critical applications and platform services, including observability, service-level objectives, on-call coverage, incident response, problem management, and resilience planning.
• Partners with Engineering, IT Operations, Security, and Quality to embed appropriate controls and validation evidence into delivery pipelines and establish clear ownership and escalation paths.
• Provides backup leadership during critical infrastructure incidents in partnership with IT Operations, while maintaining clear primary ownership and escalation protocols.
• Establishes performance baselines and tracks key measures, including deployment frequency, change lead time, change failure rate, deployment recovery time, pipeline reliability, automated-test effectiveness, platform adoption, and developer experience.
• Uses performance data, incident trends, and developer feedback to reduce build times, unreliable tests, deployment friction, and recurring manual work. Partners with engineering leaders to improve maintainability, address technical debt, and strengthen application reliability.
• Evaluates and pilots AI-assisted engineering and operations tools that may improve productivity, quality, or reliability. Validates their value and implements appropriate governance and controls before broader adoption.
• Reduces vendor and key-person dependencies through automation, documentation, cross-training, and knowledge transfer.
• Leads through influence in an established, regulated organization, balancing improvement with continuity of service and building support for sustainable change.

• Supports and ensures strictest adherence to best practices, FDA Code of Federal Regulations, ICH (International Conference on Harmonization), GCP (Good Clinical Practices), CenExel standard operating procedures, site working Practices, protocol, and company guidelines and policies.

• Assumes other duties and responsibilities as assigned. The above responsibilities are a general description of the level and nature of the work assigned to this classification and are not to be considered as all inclusive.

Education/Experience/Skills:

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, software engineering, information systems, engineering, or a related technical field—or an equivalent combination of education, training, and relevant professional experience.
• Relevant cloud, DevOps, or SRE certifications are valued but not required.
• Background in platform engineering, developer productivity, cloud infrastructure, DevOps, or site reliability engineering (SRE), including relevant leadership experience.
• Demonstrated success building shared capabilities that achieved strong adoption across engineering teams and measurably improved delivery performance and system reliability.
• Experience working in established or regulated organizations, combined with a practical, adaptable approach suited to a small team environment.
• Experience with Microsoft products including Azure, Azure DevOps, Dynamics, etc.
• Must be based in the United States and able to serve as a hands-on player-coach, leading one or two platform and SRE engineers in India while contributing directly to technical design and implementation.

Working Conditions

1. Indoor, Office environment.
2. Essential physical requirements include sitting, typing, standing, and walking.
3. Lightly active position, occasional lifting of up to 20 pounds.
4. Reporting to work, as scheduled, is essential.
5. Remote or Hybrid work arrangement.
6. Approximately 10% travel is expected to support site engagement across the network.

CenExel Clinical Research is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All applicants will be considered for employment without regards to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran, or status.