Job description

ABOUT THE COMPANY Valon is the leading AI platform for mortgage servicing, building the AI-native operating system for regulated finance. Before providing the system of record that powers the entire industry, we built and ran our own mortgage servicer on it. That gave us a real regulated environment to prove our technology could replace the mainframe systems servicers have used for decades. Carrington acquired that servicer and adopted ValonOS as its core platform, allowing us to focus entirely on scaling our SaaS platform. ValonOS is now on track to power 1 in 6 U.S. mortgages across major mortgage servicers like Newrez, Carrington, and ServiceMac. Every process on the platform is structured and programmable, enabling our AI agents to perform core servicing work, like handling payments, escrow, and homeowner questions, directly within the system's controls. We recently raised a $150 million Series D at a $2.3 billion valuation by new investor Ribbit Capital, with continued support from existing backer a16z, amongst others. ENGINEERING AT VALON Our engineering team powers a modern software ecosystem designed to disrupt one of the most outdated and heavily regulated industries in finance: mortgage servicing. We have built the foundation of a scalable platform capable of managing billions in assets with precision and reliability. Now we are focused on scaling infrastructure, improving developer experience, and building high-leverage systems that support rapid product iteration and long-term business growth. We are a tight-knit, high-agency group of engineers from Stripe, Jane Street, Meta, and Google, and we aim to do the best work of our lives—together. Our headquarters are in New York City, with a satellite San Francisco office that opened last year. We also fully support remote work. ABOUT THE ROLE We are looking for a Head of Infrastructure to lead Valon's Cloud Infrastructure and Developer Infrastructure functions as one cohesive organization. This is a senior manager, or potential Director level role with responsibility for the systems that run ValonOS and the platform that enables engineers to build and operate it. You will set the infrastructure strategy across Compute, Storage, data platforms, developer tooling, CI/CD, test infrastructure, observability, and engineering productivity. You will build and lead the organization that delivers this strategy—managing managers and senior technical leaders as the team grows, while staying close enough to the technology to make sound architectural and investment decisions. The role requires balancing two complementary outcomes: a production platform that is secure, reliable, scalable, and cost-conscious; and a developer platform that makes it easy for engineers to deliver high-quality software quickly. You will partner with product, engineering, security, data, and operations leaders to turn those outcomes into a coherent roadmap and measurable results. Valon handles more than 100 million background jobs per day and expects to scale more than 10x over the next two years. As ValonOS expands across major mortgage servicers, the infrastructure organization will be central to protecting reliability, accelerating innovation, and raising the bar for how regulated financial software is built. Examples of work on the roadmap include: - Scaling compute and batch-processing systems to support rapid growth in production workloads. - Building a durable, well-operated storage and data platform, including migrations, replication, backup, recovery, and performance. - Creating production-equivalent environments for customer testing, demos, and internal development. - Making integration testing, schema compatibility, releases, and observability easier and more reliable for every engineering team. - Adopting AI-enabled developer tools with appropriate quality, security, and governance controls. RESPONSIBILITIES - Define and communicate a multi-year infrastructure strategy spanning Cloud Infrastructure and Developer Infrastructure. - Lead, coach, and grow a high-performing organization, including engineering managers, senior technical leaders, and individual contributors. - Own the portfolio roadmap and investment decisions across Compute, Storage, data platforms, developer experience, CI/CD, test infrastructure, and observability. - Set company-wide standards for reliability, security, service ownership, incident management, developer productivity, and operational excellence. - Partner with executive and functional leaders to align infrastructure priorities with customer commitments, product strategy, and business goals. - Build the planning, review, and operating mechanisms that make progress visible and tradeoffs explicit. - Stay hands-on enough to guide architecture, challenge assumptions, and engage in the most important technical decisions and incidents. - Recruit exceptional talent, develop leaders, and create a culture of high agency, high accountability, direct feedback, and collaboration. - Represent infrastructure clearly to the broader company and make the organization a trusted partner to every engineering team. IDEAL BACKGROUND - 10+ years of software engineering experience, including 4+ years leading multiple teams, engineering managers, or a substantial infrastructure organization. - Experience owning a broad infrastructure portfolio that includes cloud platforms, compute, storage, databases, SRE, developer infrastructure, or related domains. - Strong technical depth in distributed systems and a track record of operating critical production systems at scale. - Experience setting strategy across both production infrastructure and developer experience, or the ability to credibly lead leaders in both areas. - Hands-on experience with cloud providers such as AWS or GCP, container orchestration, data stores, CI/CD, and observability. - Excellent organizational judgment: you can sequence foundational investments, make pragmatic tradeoffs, and connect technical work to business outcomes. - Demonstrated success hiring, developing, and retaining strong teams through periods of rapid growth and change. - Clear, concise communication and the ability to build alignment across engineering, product, security, data, and operations. BENEFITS - Compensation: competitive salary with a meaningful stake in the company via equity, and 401(k) plan. The base salary range reflects multiple levels. We assess level based on a combination of experience and interview performance. - Health & well-being: we’ll invest in your physical and mental well-being with comprehensive medical, dental, & vision benefits. - Free Food: daily lunch, and dinner provided through Forkable for in-office team members. - Commuter benefits: pre-tax deductions for public transit, rideshares, and parking to simplify your daily commute. - Grow together: company wide orientation for you to successfully onboard and other learning & development opportunities including regular review cycles that feature 360-degree feedback. - Play together: quarterly budgets for team and company outings. Use it for team swag, cooking classes, or team dinners. - Generous time off: flexible paid time off with no annual limit, sick days, and 11 company holidays. - Baby bonding time: 12 weeks of fully paid leave for both birthing and non-birthing parents, so you can spend uninterrupted time welcoming and caring for your newest family member. Throughout the interview process, please remember that emails will only be from valon.com valon.com email addresses. We will never ask for any personally identifiable information during the interview process itself. Please reach out to talent@valon.com if you have any requests to verify the authenticity of an outreach. Valon is an equal opportunity employer that is committed to diversity and inclusion in the workplace. We prohibit discrimination and harassment of any kind based on race, color, sex, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, genetic information, pregnancy, or any other protected characteristic as outlined by federal, state, or local laws. Valon makes hiring decisions based solely on qualifications, merit, and business needs at the time.

Requirements

Must-haves

Our headquarters are in New York City, with a satellite San Francisco office that opened last year. We also fully support remote work.
Scaling compute and batch-processing systems to support rapid growth in production workloads.
Building a durable, well-operated storage and data platform, including migrations, replication, backup, recovery, and performance.
Creating production-equivalent environments for customer testing, demos, and internal development.
Making integration testing, schema compatibility, releases, and observability easier and more reliable for every engineering team.
Adopting AI-enabled developer tools with appropriate quality, security, and governance controls.
Define and communicate a multi-year infrastructure strategy spanning Cloud Infrastructure and Developer Infrastructure.
Lead, coach, and grow a high-performing organization, including engineering managers, senior technical leaders, and individual contributors.
Own the portfolio roadmap and investment decisions across Compute, Storage, data platforms, developer experience, CI/CD, test infrastructure, and observability.
Set company-wide standards for reliability, security, service ownership, incident management, developer productivity, and operational excellence.
Partner with executive and functional leaders to align infrastructure priorities with customer commitments, product strategy, and business goals.
Build the planning, review, and operating mechanisms that make progress visible and tradeoffs explicit.
Stay hands-on enough to guide architecture, challenge assumptions, and engage in the most important technical decisions and incidents.
Recruit exceptional talent, develop leaders, and create a culture of high agency, high accountability, direct feedback, and collaboration.
Represent infrastructure clearly to the broader company and make the organization a trusted partner to every engineering team.
10+ years of software engineering experience, including 4+ years leading multiple teams, engineering managers, or a substantial infrastructure organization.
Experience owning a broad infrastructure portfolio that includes cloud platforms, compute, storage, databases, SRE, developer infrastructure, or related domains.
Strong technical depth in distributed systems and a track record of operating critical production systems at scale.
Experience setting strategy across both production infrastructure and developer experience, or the ability to credibly lead leaders in both areas.
Hands-on experience with cloud providers such as AWS or GCP, container orchestration, data stores, CI/CD, and observability.
Excellent organizational judgment: you can sequence foundational investments, make pragmatic tradeoffs, and connect technical work to business outcomes.
Demonstrated success hiring, developing, and retaining strong teams through periods of rapid growth and change.
Clear, concise communication and the ability to build alignment across engineering, product, security, data, and operations.

Nice-to-haves

None flagged.

Application prep

Use the role’s language and application details while tailoring your materials.

Keywords to mirror

aici/cdawsgcp

Platform: ashby
Effort: quick

Benefits

Benefits detected in the listing.

Dental

Vision

401(K)

Paid Time Off