Clara is the leading spend management platform in Latin America. More than 40,000 businesses run on our corporate cards, bill pay, financing and B2B payments, and in 2025 the Financial Times named Clara the fastest-growing company in Latin America. We're ~400 people, backed by Kaszek, monashees, Coatue, DST Global, ICONIQ, General Catalyst and Goldman Sachs, among others.
We are looking for a Staff DevOps Engineer who:
Responsibilities:
- Platform Leadership: Lead the design, adoption, and continuous improvement of the Internal Developer Platform (IDP), driving CI/CD pipeline standardization to increase deployment frequency and reduce Cycle Time.
- FinOps Strategy: Design and implement engineering FinOps strategy across AWS and other tooling, identifying cost-saving opportunities without compromising reliability.
- Container Orchestration: Operate and evolve our Kubernetes platform on Amazon EKS, supporting multi-country production workloads (MX/CO/BR).
- Event-Driven Infrastructure: Support and troubleshoot our Kafka/MSK-based event-driven architecture, used extensively across our microservices for async processing, notifications, and cross-service communication.
- Applied AI/Automation: Build and integrate MCP-based (Model Context Protocol) or other applied-AI solutions to automate log analysis and accelerate Root Cause Analysis (RCA) during incidents.
- Technical Advisory: Advise development teams on scalable, secure infrastructure design; identify and mitigate technical debt in legacy systems; support cross-team architectural reviews.
- Security & Access: Implement and maintain Least Privilege Access (IAM) models for both human and non-human identities, including peer review of policies.
- SSDLC: Strengthen the Secure Software Development Lifecycle through container standardization, secure base images, and pipeline hardening.
- Compliance & Audits: Lead technical compliance initiatives for audits, certifications (e.g., ISO 27001), local fintech regulations, and enterprise integration RFPs.
- Resilience: Design and implement multi-account, multi-region backup and recovery systems.
- Infrastructure as Code: Define and implement IaC for environment provisioning and management.
- Operations: Participate in on-call rotations, continuously improving MTTD/MTTR through effective monitoring and alerting.
- Mentorship: Provide technical support and mentorship to development teams adopting internal tooling (CLIs, container platforms, etc.).
Qualifications:
- Education: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.
- Experience:
- 5+ years of experience in DevOps, Platform Engineering, or SRE roles, ideally in fintech or regulated environments.
- Strong experience with multi-account, multi-region AWS (EC2, S3, RDS, Lambda, IAM, or equivalent services).
- Hands-on experience with Kubernetes on Amazon EKS (cluster operations, scaling, networking, workload troubleshooting) in production.
- Experience with Apache Kafka / Amazon MSK in production: topic design, consumer group management, performance tuning, and troubleshooting.
- Experience leading or contributing to the build of Internal Developer Platforms (IDP) and CI/CD standardization (GitHub Actions, self-hosted runners, or similar).
- Experience in observability and incident management (Datadog or similar) and DORA metrics (Cycle Time, CFR, MTTR).
- Practical knowledge of cloud security: Least Privilege, SSDLC, and compliance frameworks (ISO 27001, PCI-DSS, or regional fintech regulations).
- Experience with Infrastructure as Code.
- Technical Skills: Ruby, Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, Java; PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis; experience with our core stack of Java/Spring Boot microservices on Kubernetes (EKS) with Kafka/MSK for event-driven communication; familiarity with applying AI/LLMs to operational tasks (automated log analysis, MCPs, agents) is a plus.
Additional Skills & Pluses
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with a strategic mindset.
- Quick learner, adaptable to changes and willing to shift directions as needed.
- Innate curiosity and an ability to thrive in an ambiguous and rapidly changing environment.
- Organizational skills to produce clear documentation and present to stakeholders.
- Native Spanish; intermediate-advanced English.
- A high talent-density team driven to make an impact in Latin America — low ego, high ownership.
- Competitive salary and stock options (ESOP) from day one.
- An annual learning budget and accelerated development paths.
- English is our working language, with Spanish and Portuguese every day.
- Clarity — Open and direct communication: we say what we mean and give context where it matters.
- Simplicity — If it can be simpler, it should be.
- Ownership — We own everything we do, end to end. When something needs to happen, we don't wait.
- Pride — We hold ourselves to a high standard, and it shows in what we deliver.
- ABC (Always Be Changing) — We adapt fast, embrace change, and keep learning.
- Inclusivity — Diverse ideas, stories and perspectives build a better Clara.
Claridians split their time between the office, customers and home. We don't set a minimum number of office days for most roles, but we expect you to spend time there naturally, and most days during your ramp-up or when your leader asks.
If you meet the must-haves, apply — the nice-to-haves are a bonus, not a requirement.
Skills Required
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field
- 5+ years of experience in DevOps, Platform Engineering, or SRE roles
- Experience in fintech or regulated environments
- Strong experience with multi-account, multi-region AWS, including EC2, S3, RDS, Lambda, and IAM
- Production experience operating Kubernetes on Amazon EKS, including cluster operations, scaling, networking, and troubleshooting
- Production experience with Apache Kafka or Amazon MSK, including topic design, consumer groups, performance tuning, and troubleshooting
- Experience building or contributing to Internal Developer Platforms and standardizing CI/CD
- Experience with GitHub Actions, self-hosted runners, or similar CI/CD tooling
- Experience in observability and incident management using Datadog or similar tools
- Knowledge of DORA metrics, including Cycle Time, CFR, and MTTR
- Practical knowledge of cloud security, least privilege, SSDLC, and compliance frameworks
- Experience with Infrastructure as Code
- Experience with Ruby, Python, JavaScript or TypeScript, and Java
- Experience with PostgreSQL, MySQL, and Redis
- Experience with Java and Spring Boot microservices on Kubernetes with Kafka/MSK
- Familiarity with AI or LLM applications for operational tasks, automated log analysis, MCPs, or agents
- Native Spanish and intermediate-advanced English
Clara Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Clara and has not been reviewed or approved by Clara.
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Equity Value & Accessibility — Equity grants are emphasized across several descriptions, with stock options commonly included and in some instances available from day one. Feedback suggests this ownership component is a meaningful part of total rewards.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Time off offerings are portrayed as flexible, including references to flexible vacation and flexible time off policies. Feedback suggests this supports work–life balance for many roles.
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Wellbeing & Lifestyle Benefits — Wellness support is cited through mental‑health platforms, coaching and meditation programs, and monthly wellness reimbursements in some contexts. Feedback suggests these offerings complement core benefits where available.
Clara Insights
What We Do
Clara is the leading payment platform for companies in Latin America. Our end-to-end solution includes our locally-issued corporate cards, Bill Pay, crossborder payments, and our highly-rated software platform used by thousands of the most successful companies across the region. Clara is backed by top global and regional investors such as Coatue, DST Global, General Catalyst, monashees, Kaszek, Canary, A*, BoxGroup, SV Angel, GFC, Picus Capital, Avid Ventures, ICONIQ Growth, Goldman Sachs, and prominent angel investors. Driven by our six core values (Ownership, Pride, ABC, Simplicity, Clarity and Inclusivity) we’ve reached a unicorn valuation in record time, have been recognized as a Great Place to Work and as one of the most promising startups according to Linkedin’s ranking “Top Startups 2021”. We’re looking for the best talent worldwide to join our team and be part of this journey, so you can't afford to miss this chance! We are: * Shaping business finances in Latin America * Driven by our 6 core values * Proud of our inclusive and caring culture * Certified as a Great Place to Work and a Top LinkedIn Startup
