Senior Platform Engineer

The Foundation

We are the largest nonprofit fighting poverty, disease, and inequity around the world. Founded on a simple premise: people everywhere, regardless of identity or circumstances, should have the chance to live healthy, productive lives. We believe our employees should reflect the rich diversity of the global populations we aim to serve.

We provide an exceptional benefits package to employees and their families which includes comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage with no premiums, generous paid time off, paid family leave, foundation‑paid retirement contribution, regional holidays, and opportunities to engage in several employee communities.

As a workplace, we’re committed to creating an environment for you to thrive both personally and professionally.

The Team

Within Business Operations and the CIO organization, the Enterprise Data Solutions (EDS) team leads work across Knowledge Management, AI, Data Engineering, Business Intelligence, Data Infrastructure, and Health Data Platforms. The team’s vision is to empower the Foundation with innovative, data‑driven services and solutions that enable timely, informed decision‑making.

As part of this scope, the EDS team recently launched the Enterprise Data Platform (EDP) – the central hub for managing, analyzing, and sharing the Foundation’s data assets and enabling AI.

Are you an experienced Platform Engineer with passion for building next‑generation data and AI platforms that help solve some of the world's most pressing challenges? The Gates Foundation is seeking a Senior Platform Engineer to help architect and scale a world‑class data and AI ecosystem that powers breakthrough work across global health, global development, education, gender equality, and humanitarian response.

This is a unique opportunity for a highly skilled Platform Engineer with deep expertise in Databricks, Microsoft Azure, and AI technologies to shape the future of how data and intelligence drive global impact.

In this role, you will lead the design and evolution of a modern, enterprise‑scale platform built on Azure, Databricks, and Snowflake, enabling advanced analytics, machine learning, and cutting‑edge generative AI capabilities. You will help transform vast amounts of structured and unstructured data—including research reports, program documents, survey results, and field data—into actionable insights that accelerate decision‑making and innovation.

You will work at the forefront of AI, leveraging technologies such as Azure OpenAI, Claude, Azure AI Search, and intelligent data services to build secure, scalable, and responsible AI solutions. Your expertise in Databricks and cloud‑native engineering will be critical in creating high‑performance data pipelines, AI‑ready architectures, and API‑driven platforms that empower teams across the foundation.

Beyond technology, you’ll play a key role in establishing trusted, governed, and ethical AI systems, ensuring compliance with global data governance standards through platforms such as Collibra.

• Lead the architecture and development of a cloud‑native Data and AI platform on Azure, Databricks Lakehouse and Snowflake
• Design and implement API‑first data platform to enable secure, governed data sharing across teams, partners, and global stakeholders
• Operationalize GenAI solutions for knowledge discovery and decision support, including:
  • Retrieval‑Augmented Generation (RAG) architectures
  • Integration with OpenAI and Claude APIs
  • Semantic and hybrid search using Azure AI Search
• Create design patterns for document ingestion, parsing, OCR, metadata extraction, and enrichment
• Design and implement embedding and vector search strategies for unstructured data
• Lead the implementation of data governance and stewardship practices using Collibra, including:
  • Data cataloging, lineage, and metadata management
  • Data quality frameworks and stewardship workflows
  • Alignment with global privacy, security, and compliance standards
• Establish secure data access patterns (RBAC/ABAC), ensuring detection (PHI/PII scanning) and protection of sensitive data
• Build reusable platform services, APIs, and tools that enable self‑service…