Full-Time
Lead Platform Engineer
Koalafi
201-500 employees
Checkout-integrated financing for merchants
Compensation Overview
$174k - $226k/yr
Remote in USA + 2 more
More locations: Richmond, VA, USA | Arlington County, Arlington, VA, USA
Hybrid
Remote opportunities are available throughout the United States; Richmond and Arlington associates may work in-office, hybrid, or remotely.
 DevOps & Infrastructure (1) |
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- Demonstrated experience as a formal people manager or tech lead with direct reports, including performance management, career development conversations, and building team capability over time.
- Experience owning timelines, driving sprint execution, and being directly accountable for what a team ships.
- At least 7 years of hands-on experience in cloud infrastructure or platform engineering, with demonstrated scope growth and increasing leadership responsibility.
- Strong hands-on production experience with Terraform, including modules, patterns, environment strategy, and state management.
- Strong hands-on experience operating Kubernetes in production.
- Strong AWS fundamentals, including practical experience with compute, networking, identity and access management, and production operations.
- Experience building and maintaining continuous integration and continuous delivery pipelines.
- Strong observability fundamentals, including metrics, logging, distributed tracing, service-level objective and service-level indicator design, and alerting strategy.
- Experience building automation using Bash and at least one general-purpose language such as Python or Go.
- Strong troubleshooting skills, including driving root cause analysis and implementing long-term fixes.
- Hands-on production engineering experience using artificial intelligence coding tools such as GitHub Copilot, Cursor, or Claude.
- Ability to partner with senior technical peers and exercise judgment about when to consult versus decide independently.
- Manage a team of engineers with full accountability for their performance, growth, and wellbeing.
- Own one-on-one meetings, performance reviews, and career development conversations.
- Build a team culture that is organized, reliable, and focused on impact.
- Mentor engineers through code reviews, pairing, and delivery coaching.
- Partner with the vice president on escalated people concerns and help shape team working norms.
- Carry significant engineering responsibility alongside the team and actively deliver high-impact work.
- Own day-to-day technical decisions within the team's scope.
- Translate architectural direction into sprint-level tasks.
- Build and evolve continuous integration and continuous delivery pipelines and delivery automation.
- Improve observability and operational readiness across metrics, logging, distributed tracing, and alerting, including actionable dashboards and service-level-objective-based alerting.
- Design and implement automation and self-service workflows using infrastructure-as-code, application programming interfaces, and developer platforms.
- Implement secure delivery practices with policy-driven pipeline controls.
- Contribute to infrastructure in Terraform within established architectural patterns and standards.
- Support and improve secrets-management patterns across runtime and continuous integration and continuous delivery workflows.
- Champion artificial intelligence-assisted development practices, including prompt-engineering workflows, artificial-intelligence-powered code review, and tooling integrations.
- Own incident-response coordination, drive the process, communicate status, and ensure issues reach the appropriate people.
- Participate in the on-call rotation and drive improvements that reduce incidents and alert noise.
- Build and maintain operational runbooks, escalation paths, and documentation for team-owned systems.
- Drive production readiness as a continuous standard.
- Own career development through growth planning, identifying opportunities, and building engineer capability.
- Manage team working norms, address blockers, and partner with the vice president on escalated people concerns.
- Experience with Istio or other service mesh technologies.
- Experience operating relational databases in AWS, including RDS PostgreSQL, Aurora, or MS SQL.
- Experience with AWS Lambda or serverless architectures.
- Experience improving reliability for distributed systems at scale.
- Prior experience as a technical anchor or team lead in a platform or infrastructure context.
- Experience building or operating infrastructure that supports artificial intelligence and machine learning workloads in AWS, including compute, storage, or serving patterns.
Koalafi embeds pay-over-time financing directly into a merchant’s checkout flow. It supports all credit types in one application, helping nearly every customer qualify for financing across retailers, including furniture stores. This leads to higher conversion and approval rates (over 90%), boosting merchant sales and customer retention. Revenue comes from financing fees and merchant partnerships; the goal is to help merchants unlock new revenue opportunities by offering a seamless, flexible payment option at checkout.
Company Size
201-500
Company Stage
Early VC
Total Funding
$10.9M
Headquarters
Glen Allen, Virginia
Founded
2014
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See people who can refer or advise you
Simplify's Take
What believers are saying
- Koalafi’s Synchrony tie-up broadens merchant distribution across furniture, mattresses, appliances, and tires.
- March 2026 CEO Patrick Moore brings Mosaic and Capital One lending operating experience.
- Koalafi’s financing reports to TransUnion, strengthening merchant pitch and consumer credit-building.
What critics are saying
- May 14, 2026 Michigan settled for $3.25 million over auto-repair lease-to-own violations.
- Courts have challenged Koalafi arbitration and contract formation in California class litigation.
- BBB logged 523 complaints in three years; repeated merchant churn threatens reputation and originations.
What makes Koalafi unique
- January 22, 2026 Synchrony Business Center integration bundles card and lease-to-own approvals.
- Koalafi approves up to $7,500 and serves non-prime shoppers through one application.
- March 11, 2026 Patrick Moore shifted leadership toward consumer-finance scale and transparency.
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Benefits
Health Insurance
Dental Insurance
Vision Insurance
Unlimited Paid Time Off
Paid Vacation
401(k) Retirement Plan
401(k) Company Match
Student Loan Assistance
Tuition Reimbursement
Commuter Benefits
Parental Leave
Inclusion and Associate Engagement Programs
Growth & Insights and Company News
6 month growth
↑ 2%1 year growth
↑ 1%2 year growth
↑ 0%Michigan secures settlement with car financing company over auto-repair agreements. May 20, 2026 Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has secured an agreement with West Creek Financial, Inc., a Virginia corporation doing business under the name Koalafi, to resolve allegations that the lease-to-own financing company violated the Michigan Consumer Protection Act and Rental-Purchase Agreement Act. Under the Assurance of Voluntary Compliance and Discontinuance, West Creek Financial will pay $3.25 million to the Department of Attorney General. The settlement will primarily be used to provide restitution to eligible Michigan consumers who entered into auto-repair lease-to-own agreements with the company. The Department began investigating West Creek Financial in 2024 following consumer complaints that lease-to-own agreements, traditionally meant for the lease and acquisition of goods, were being used for auto-repair transactions, including labor, parts, and fluids. As part of the agreement, West Creek Financial will pay $3.25 million for consumer restitution and administrative costs. The distribution of restitution payments will be handled through a settlement administrator. Consumers who are eligible for restitution will receive notice from the settlement administrator with information on how to submit a claim. Within 45 days, the company is also required to ensure that lease-to-own agreements are not used to pay for auto-repair-related parts and services. Consumers who previously entered into such agreements and have already paid at least 1.75 times the cash price will have their balances reduced to zero under the agreement and will be granted immediate ownership of purchased parts without further payment. Was this article valuable? Interested in auto? Get automatic alerts for this topic.
Koalafi, a consumer finance company specialising in inclusive payment solutions, has appointed Patrick Moore as chief executive officer. Moore brings extensive experience in consumer finance and fintech, having previously served as CEO of Mosaic, a fintech platform focused on residential solar and home improvement financing. Boomer Muth, who served as interim CEO during the transition, will continue as board chair. During his tenure, Muth expanded Koalafi's nationwide merchant network and marketplace platform whilst maintaining operational continuity. Moore has previously held leadership positions at Renovate America as chief operating officer and chief lending officer, and at Concora Credit as chief operating officer. He also worked at Toyota Financial Services and Capital One. Under Moore's leadership, Koalafi will focus on expanding access to transparent financing whilst driving operational excellence and sustainable growth.
Koalafi, a consumer finance company, has integrated with Synchrony's Business Center, allowing merchants to offer both Synchrony's store-branded credit cards and Koalafi's lease-to-own option through a single application. The integration targets omnichannel merchants selling furniture, mattresses, appliances, or tyres and wheels. The waterfall financing experience aims to serve the over 40% of US consumers who don't qualify for prime credit. Koalafi's lease-to-own solution provides high approval rates and reports payment activity to TransUnion, potentially helping customers build credit over time. "Together, we're helping merchants unlock more opportunities at the point of sale and deliver a better experience for every shopper," said Boomer Muth, Koalafi's CEO. The integration is designed to increase conversion rates and revenue for merchants serving customers across a wide credit spectrum.
Koalafi named a finalist in Furniture Today's 2025 Reader Rankings awards. December 5, 2025 Koalafi Is Hiring is thrilled to share that Furniture Today readers have recognized Koalafi as one of two finalists in Furniture Today's 2025 Reader Rankings "Best Consumer Finance Company" category. Koalafi is the only lease-to-own financing provider named a finalist or winner in this category. Being named a finalist in this nationally recognized industry poll is an incredible honor and reflects how merchants and consumers alike value flexible payment solutions that are transparent, inclusive, and easy to use. Koalafi Is Hiring is grateful to everyone who cast a vote for Koalafi and supports its mission to ensure no one has to put an important purchase on hold. Koalafi Is Hiring would not be here without the merchants who rely on Koalafi at checkout and the consumers who trust Koalafi's lease-to-own plans every day. Their support continues to inspire Koalafi Is Hiring as Koalafi Is Hiring build tools that help merchants and their customers succeed. With deep appreciation for everyone who contributed to this recognition, Koalafi Is Hiring is also excited to acknowledge the outstanding companies recognized alongside Koalafi Is Hiring. A huge congratulations to Synchrony, the 2025 Reader Rankings "Best Consumer Finance Company" category winner and ChargeAfter, the other category finalist. Koalafi Is Hiring is proud to be recognized among such a strong companies within the consumer finance space. Discover all the category winners and finalists here. Looking ahead. Koalafi is continuing to invest in smarter technology, deeper partner and consumer support, and new features that make consumer financing easier and more inclusive. Thank you again to everyone who voted and relies on Koalafi to help their business grow. Koalafi Is Hiring is honored to be among the leaders shaping the future of retail financing.
RICHMOND, Va., April 16, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Koalafi, a leading consumer finance company, today announced a series of strategic leadership appointments that signal the company's continued momentum and commitment to innovation and sustainable growth.Charles Battle has joined the company as Chief Product and Technology Officer (CPTO), bringing a proven track record of building high impact fintech product and technology teams, most recently as the Head of Product at Ibotta. In his new role, Battle will oversee product strategy, engineering, and platform innovation, helping Koalafi scale its financing offerings and retail footprint."We're thrilled to welcome Charles to the leadership team," said Eric Kobe, CEO of Koalafi. "His deep expertise at the intersection of technology and consumer finance will be instrumental as we enhance our platform and deliver smarter, more inclusive financing solutions to merchants and the customers they serve."Koalafi also announced the addition of two accomplished industry veterans to its Board of Directors:Miles Reidy, Partner Emeritus at QED Investors, brings decades of experience in financial services and retail, including previous leadership roles as CFO at Sears Holdings and Audax Health. At QED, Reidy has been a trusted advisor to numerous high growth fintech companies, helping them scale responsibly.Steve Allocca, a fintech executive and entrepreneur, joins the board with deep operational and lending expertise. Most recently CEO of Funding Circle US, Allocca has also profitably grown multi-billion-dollar businesses at several leading financial institutions, including PayPal, Wells Fargo, LendingClub, and Bluevine."Miles and Steve bring an extraordinary breadth of experience and insight into the challenges and opportunities of modern consumer finance and scaling businesses," said Kobe. "Their guidance will be invaluable as we double down on our mission to provide inclusive financial products that help businesses and consumers succeed."These leadership appointments reflect Koalafi's strong growth trajectory and its vision to modernize point-of-sale financing with a focus on transparency, access, and customer experience.About KoalafiKoalafi (koalafi.com) offers convenient and transparent financing options that enable non-prime consumers to make life-changing purchases