DevOps / Platform Lead

Role Summary

DevOps/Platform Lead is a strategic, hands-on role responsible for leading the design, implementation, and evolution of our enterprise cloud infrastructure and developer platforms. You will bridge the gap between development and operations, driving the adoption of cloud-native technologies, continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) practices, and Infrastructure as Code (IaC).As a DevOps/Platform Lead, you will lead a high-performing team of DevOps and Platform engineers, foster a culture of automation, and collaborate closely with Software Engineering, Security, and Product teams to ensure our platforms are scalable, secure, resilient, and optimized for developer velocity.

Qualifications and Experience

- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent experience)- Minimum of 8-10 years of experience in DevOps, Cloud Engineering, or Systems Architecture.- At least 3+ years of experience in a managerial or team lead capacity, directly managing engineering teams.- Proven experience designing and managing production infrastructure at scale on major cloud providers (AWS, Azure, or GCP).- Strong background in managing high-traffic, 24/7 production environments with a focus on zero-downtime deployments.

Certifications (Preferred)

Cloud Architecture: AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Professional, Google Cloud Certified Professional Cloud Architect, or Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert.DevOps/Platform: AWS Certified DevOps Engineer - Professional, or Microsoft Certified: DevOps Engineer Expert.Kubernetes: Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) or Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD).Methodology: Agile/Scrum certifications (e.g., CSM, PMI-ACP) and ITIL framework knowledge.

Skills and Competencies

Technical:Cloud Computing: Deep expertise in AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud Platform (GCP).Containerization & Orchestration: Advanced knowledge of Kubernetes, Docker, and service meshes (e.g., Istio, Linkerd).Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Mastery of Terraform, OpenTofu, CloudFormation, or Pulumi.CI/CD Tools: Extensive experience with Jenkins, GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, ArgoCD, or Flux.Configuration Management: Proficiency with Ansible, Chef, or Puppet.Scripting & Programming: Strong scripting skills in Python, Bash, or Go.Observability Stack: Hands-on experience with Prometheus, Grafana, ELK Stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana), Datadog, or New Relic.Networking & Security: Solid understanding of VPCs, DNS, Load Balancers, CDN, TLS/SSL, and WAF.Leadership:Strategic Thinking: Ability to align technical roadmaps with overarching business goals.Communication: Exceptional verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to articulate complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.Problem-Solving: Strong analytical and troubleshooting skills under pressure during critical incidents.Collaboration: A proven bridge-builder who can advocate for DevOps culture across diverse engineering and product organizations.

Key Responsibilities

Details

Team Leadership & People Management

Lead, mentor, and inspire a team of DevOps and Platform engineers, fostering a culture of continuous learning, collaboration, and accountability.Manage resource allocation, project timelines, sprint planning, and performance evaluations for the team.Define career paths, set clear OKRs, and conduct regular 1-on-1s to support team members' professional growth.

Platform Architecture & Strategy

Define the long-term vision and roadmap for the Internal Developer Platform (IDP) to reduce cognitive load on engineering teams and accelerate time-to-market.Architect scalable, highly available, and fault-tolerant cloud infrastructure utilizing best practices in microservices and containerization.Drive the migration from legacy infrastructure to modern, cloud-native architectures.

CI/CD & Automation Engineering

Standardize, optimize, and maintain automated CI/CD pipelines across all environments to ensure safe, repeatable, and frequent deployments.Enforce "Infrastructure as Code" (IaC) as the foundational principle for all environment provisioning and configuration management.Eliminate manual interventions by automating routine operational tasks and building self-service tools for developers.

Site Reliability & Observability

Own the availability, performance, and monitoring of production environments, establishing and tracking critical SLIs, SLOs, and SLAs.Implement comprehensive observability frameworks, including centralized logging, metrics collection, distributed tracing, and proactive alerting.Lead incident response management, conduct blameless post-mortems, and ensure root causes are addressed to prevent recurrence.

DevSecOps & Compliance

Partner with the Security team to integrate automated security scanning (SAST/DAST, dependency scanning, container vulnerability assessments) directly into the CI/CD pipeline.Manage and enforce identity and access management (IAM) policies, secret management, and network security controls using the principle of least privilege.Ensure the platform complies with relevant industry standards and regulations (e.g., ISO 27001, SOC 2, GDPR, HIPAA).

FinOps & Cost Optimization

Monitor, analyze, and optimize cloud infrastructure spend across all environments without compromising performance or reliability.Implement auto-scaling policies, right-sizing strategies, and lifecycle management for data retention to eliminate waste.Provide regular financial reporting and forecasting on cloud resource consumption to executive leadership.

Compliance

Design, implement, and audit compliance controls across all cloud environments to ensure strict adherence to relevant industry standards and regulations (e.g., ISO 27001, SOC 2, GDPR, HIPAA).Lead the engineering team through internal and external compliance audits, ensuring documentation, system logs, and architecture diagrams are accurate and up to date.Enforce corporate governance policies, data retention practices, and disaster recovery (DR) compliance protocols.

Stakeholder Management

Act as the primary liaison between the platform engineering team and key internal business units, including Product Management, Software Engineering Leads, Quality Assurance, and Executive Leadership.Gather requirements and feedback from internal development teams (treating developers as internal customers) to continuously improve the platform experience and developer velocity.Clearly communicate technical roadmaps, infrastructure risks, system availability reports, and the business value of DevOps initiatives to non-technical stakeholders.