Director, Platform Systems

About Us

Let’s go on an adventure together!  

Hey there, we’re G Adventures. We’re one of the world’s leading small group travel companies, and we’ve always believed that travel isn’t just about where you go — it’s about how it changes you.

For the last 35 years, we’ve set out to do things differently. No cookie-cutter tours. No giant buses or cruise ships. And not to mention, as few selfie sticks as possible. Just real humans, travelling your heart out across the world with open minds and a non-stop desire to make our planet better, simply by exploring it. 

At G Adventures, our DNA (or GNA, if you will) is built on belonging — where bringing your authentic self to work every day isn’t just accepted, it’s downright celebrated. For our office crew — you wanna rock a t-shirt with your dog’s face on it? We say go for it. For our Chief Experience Officers —  you wanna hit the road and call some of the most epic places on Earth your home office? We love that — and we’ve got you. Wanna spend your days with people you genuinely like? Us too — and we’re pretty sure you’ll fit right in, wherever that is. 

Now about that career of yours — this is the kind of place where you can spread your wings and truly grow into your role. The best part? You get to do it all alongside a passionate, freakishly talented, one-of-a-kind bunch excited to produce top-notch work and spread a ridiculous amount of goodness at the same time. 

Feel like this could be the right fit? We think so too, and we’re already way too excited to meet you.

Reporting to the VP of Global Technology, the Director of Platform Systems will be responsible for leading the evolution of our current software and infrastructure platforms, as well as building the future versions. The solutions-oriented individual will direct software engineering and DevOps  teams to develop a customer-centric platform for customizing, booking, managing, and operating trips across the G Travel Community (GTC) portfolio of products. They will be accountable for architecting and scaling the underlying AWS infrastructure which hosts these applications. The candidate will help identify, plan & implement multi-year programs for all practical migrations of applications from future acquisitions, to GTC platforms. As part of the global Technology leadership, the role will be responsible for the mentorship and growth of manager and staff developer direct reports, as well as collaborate with executive leadership across the organization. They will help evolve the current organizational structure of distributed teams and lead the strategy of offshore locations.

SOFTWARE ENGINEERING

• Play a key leadership role in developing and executing strategies that meet business objectives and enabling critical decision making
• Plan integrations of current and prospective G Adventure acquisitions by identifying system synergies & conducting gap analysis to determine how to best meet business requirements
• Present G Adventure product offerings to potential partners, developing white labeling and back office opportunities that leverage proprietary systems
• Lead build vs buy decisions to align with product requirements and stories, architecture specifications, and customer/stakeholder needs
• Work closely with Business Analysts and Project Managers team to ensure technology projects are properly scoped with the correct business stakeholders, risks are being mitigated, and transparent communication with the business is being maintained
• Evolve the SDLC to improve delivery of complex software projects and provide greater predictability of timelines
• Define, report and analyze a comprehensive set metrics to inform decision making on development practices
• Identify engineering challenges and guide the architecture and implementation of scalable solutions

INFRASTRUCTURE

• Help define the architecture, design, requirements, and tooling for the AWS infrastructure which hosts custom software applications
• Maintain high availability and reliability of platform systems, by establishing and improving SLAs, SLIs, and SLOs via service performance monitoring
• Lead initiatives to optimize performance, fault tolerance, and alignment with application requirements across queue-based workflows
• Automate cloud infrastructure and configuration, as well as CI/CD of the hosted applications
• Apply DevSecOps practices across the software lifecycle and ensure that all infrastructure complies with regulatory requirements (e.g., SOC 2, GDPR)
• Oversee the design and management of complex networking environments, including VPC architecture, VPC peering, NACLs, VPNs, and multi-region setups
• Develop and enforce a log management strategy that optimizes system observability and provides actionable insights
• Forecast budgets for infrastructure requirements and the associated tooling

PEOPLE & LEADERSHIP

• Lead, inspire, manage, and motivate a group of managers and very senior contributors while growing their leadership and technical skills
• Manage the expansion of development teams in existing and new offshore locations
• Monitor team member performance, set individual goals, meet for regular 1-on-1s, and perform yearly reviews
• Conduct interviews to assist with hiring qualified team members
• Work jointly with the Global Technology leadership team to define the technology vision, strategy, and roadmaps to ensure success 
• Collaborate with the Global Technology management team to define departmental policy, processes, and procedures that scale across the group of businesses
• Manage communication at all levels of the organization regarding team goals and progress to those goals
• Prioritize a high-volume of competing tasks in an extremely fast-paced environment, while managing stakeholder expectations

REQUIREMENTS/SKILLS/EXPERIENCE

• 15+ years of experience in software development, ideally with some in travel and tourism or related industries 
• 10+ years of technical management experience
• 5+ years of AWS solutions architecture & services such as S3, ALB, ECS, RDS/Aurora, Elasticache, Lambda, SQS
• Experience establishing and growing offshore teams
• Proficiency with architecting CI/CD, accessible logging, performance monitoring, and issue dashboards using tools such as CircleCI, Datadog, Sentry
• Operational experience with infrastructure provisioning/configuration tools such as Ansible, Terraform
• Familiarity with containerization technologies such as AWS ECS, Kubernetes, Docker
• Detailed knowledge of agile development methodologies
• Foundational background of writing code with the ability to read code in a variety of languages, ideally Python, Go, JavaScript
• Fundamental understanding of data modeling and impact on database designs, clustering and replication
• Foundational background working and building in an API driven architecture, creating scalability for interconnected systems organization wide
• Demonstrated experience engaging with all levels of management including senior level executives and proven ability to manage relationships both horizontally and vertically
• Knowledge of software development lifecycles and Kanban/Agile methodologies
• University bachelor’s degree in computer science or related experience

What Do We Offer You?

• Competitive Total Rewards Package, including exclusive travel perks!
• Additional days off, including on your birthday!
• Vacation time for you to recharge
• Enhanced Parental Leave
• Meaningful Employee Recognition Program
• Learning and Growth Opportunities
• Employee Resource Groups

*Applicable based on location*

Artificial intelligence (AI) tools may be used to support the administrative processing of applications, such as organizing and formatting applicant information. AI is not used to screen, assess, or select applicants. All hiring decisions are made by our recruitment team.

G Adventures is an equal opportunity employer committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive work environment. We consider all qualified applicants.