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Platform Lead (m/f/d)

Cologne, GermanyFull-time

The role

The independent automotive aftermarket runs on data. But that data sits in silos, locked inside each company. The value of connecting it is obvious to everyone. What’s missing is the infrastructure that makes sharing it safe. Kyvera exists to build it. That infrastructure has to exist as running systems: secure, reliable, and simple to connect to. That is your job.

As Platform Lead, you ship, operate, and evolve the core platform of the Kyvera data space. You build the technical foundations for secure, rules-based data exchange between independent, often competing companies: APIs, connectors, data flows, identity and access patterns, security controls, monitoring, and reliable delivery.

This is not a pure design or architecture role. You make pragmatic technical decisions, write production-grade code, operate what you build, and improve the platform continuously based on real usage, partner feedback, and operational evidence. You build greenfield, and you keep it that way: clean foundations, deliberate interfaces, no inherited legacy.

This is a founding role. The engineering culture of Kyvera will largely be the one you establish.

What you’ll do

  • Ship and operate the core platform capabilities on AWS: identity and access management, encryption, logging, APIs, connectors, and data pipelines.
  • Establish production-grade engineering from day one: CI/CD, infrastructure as code, automated testing, observability, and operational runbooks.
  • Own the platform end-to-end: what it technically is, how it runs, and the security and reliability bar it never drops below. The Lead AI Engineer owns the intelligence layer, how data is understood, mapped, and quality-assured. Where the two meet, the boundary is explicit; where they collide, the CTO decides.
  • Work directly with shareholders and partners on real integration challenges: data formats, mapping, latency, quality, and the edge cases that only exist in the real world.
  • Make integration easy. Treat the partner and developer experience as a product: onboarding flows, documentation, examples, and reusable patterns that turn connecting to Kyvera from a project into a task.
  • Design the platform for AI and analytics extensibility without compromising sovereignty, security, or operational reliability.
  • Let the architecture grow from evidence: turn learnings from shipped increments into better structure over time, avoiding big upfront design while keeping the technical bar high.

Who you are

  • You have built, shipped, and operated scalable, reliable infrastructure systems in production, and you have stayed around long enough to live with your own decisions.
  • You are a strong hands-on senior engineer with a track record in backend, platform, or integration-heavy systems.
  • You have deep AWS expertise: IAM, networking, encryption and KMS, logging, monitoring, and cloud-native delivery.
  • You have built APIs, connectors, data pipelines, or integration platforms, and messy real-world data does not scare you.
  • Production engineering is your standard, not your aspiration: automated testing, CI/CD, infrastructure as code, observability, incident response, and operational ownership.
  • You make pragmatic decisions under uncertainty while holding a high bar for security, reliability, and maintainability, and you can explain your reasoning to teammates, shareholders, and partners alike.
  • Experience with data exchange standards, identity federation, policy enforcement, consent-based data sharing, or multi-party data ecosystems makes you stronger in this role.
  • You work fluently in English; German is a plus.

What this role offers

A founding seat in an institution the industry has talked about for years and never built. You shape the core platform of new market infrastructure from day one: not by producing architecture slides, but by shipping, operating, and evolving the systems that let an entire industry collaborate on data securely. What you build here becomes the rails the aftermarket runs on.

You work as part of a small founding team, report directly to the CTO, and operate with founder-level ownership, backed by TecAlliance’s three decades of automotive data expertise, trusted neutrality, and industry relationships.

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Who thrives here:

You build first versions

Most of what you make will not have existed before. We build to think: prototypes before papers, validation before polish, and getting it wrong on the way to right is the job, not a deviation from it.

You own outcomes, not output

Success here is measured value in the market, nothing softer. Decisions sit with the people doing the work, and work that cannot prove its value is stopped, which is what protects the work that can.

You work with the market

Manufacturers, distributors, workshops: the people the work is for are in the room, and the unit of persuasion is a demonstration on their own data. Whether they use what you build is the review.

You keep commitment speed

Momentum beats hesitation: short decision cycles, direct paths, done beating perfect while we learn. The pace you saw in the hiring process is the pace of the place.

Frequently asked questions:

A CV, the work or experience you are proudest of, and a few lines on what you want to achieve for yourself with us. No cover-letter rituals.

Take your time. We are happy to give you space to think and to finish any other interview processes you are going through.

English is our working language. German can be an advantage in certain roles; where it is, the job description says so.

No: you need an existing right to work in Germany.

Yes, after twelve months, or sooner if something material has changed in your experience or skills.

Most of the team is in the Cologne area and comes to the office regularly, and we prefer it that way: we are building this company and its culture, and that happens in person. Occasional work from home is normal, nothing is forbidden; the settled policy is one we will write together as the team grows. We can be flexible during a transition period if you are relocating.

Not at the moment: the team is small and every hire is senior.