Group Lead IT, Platform Engineering

Job Description

Job Title: Group Lead IT, Platform Engineering

Band: 11

Location: Bangalore, India

Reports to: Paul Eastman, Head of Product Platforms & Engineering (PP&E)

Job Summary

Kraft Heinz's Product Platforms & Engineering (PP&E) organisation is building a single, India-based Platform Engineering capability that brings our DevOps and Quality Engineering platform teams together under one leader. This is a brand-new leadership role: you will design, build and run the team, the toolset and the operating model from the outset, rather than inherit an established function.

The mission of the Platform Engineering function is to make it fast, safe and easy for every engineer at Kraft Heinz, human or AI-assisted, to build, test and run high-quality digital products. You will own the full platform stack end to end: CI/CD, project management, observability, and the Quality Engineering and test automation toolset. You will define the platform's strategy, service catalogue and governance, and you will lead a growing India-based team of managers and engineers, working closely with our delivery partner HCLTech under our "Autonomous Operations" model.

This role sits on the PP&E leadership team alongside the Product Engineering Chapter Lead and the Power Platform Lead, and is directly accountable for modernising a large technology estate, and aligning platform delivery to Kraft Heinz's Reference Architecture.

Key Responsibilities

Platform Strategy & Governance

• Own and evolve the strategy for the combined DevOps and Quality Engineering platform, defining the service catalogue, availability, configuration and release lifecycle for each capability.
• Govern the platforms that enable Kraft Heinz's engineering community to build, test, deploy and operate digital products, and be accountable for service performance definition, measurement and reporting.
• Drive rationalisation of a toolset that currently spans 20+ tools and technologies, making deliberate, evidence-based decisions on where to consolidate and where to invest, in line with our Capable, Lean & Healthy strategy.
• Align platform architecture and controls to Kraft Heinz's Reference Architecture

Team Leadership & Talent Development

• Build, structure and lead the India-based Platform Engineering team from the ground up, starting with the Testing Platform Manager and DevOps Platform Delivery Manager as direct reports, growing the function toward its target headcount over time.
• Recruit, coach and develop platform and test engineers, establishing Kraft Heinz as a location of choice for platform engineering talent in India.
• Set clear objectives, career pathways and performance standards for the team, fostering a culture of ownership, engineering excellence and continuous improvement.
• Act as a member of Paul Eastman's PP&E leadership team, contributing to organisation design, workforce planning and cross-chapter initiatives beyond the immediate platform remit.

DevSecOps & Toolset Ownership

• Ensure the smooth, secure operation of the DevSecOps toolset, including CI/CD (e.g. GitHub, Azure DevOps), security and compliance tooling (vulnerability scanning, secrets management) and monitoring/logging tooling (e.g. PagerDuty, New Relic, Grafana).
• Collaborate with development teams and the Software Engineering chapter to ensure DevSecOps capabilities are seamlessly integrated into the software development lifecycle.
• Work with the security team to ensure the platform meets organisational security policy and regulatory requirements.

Quality Engineering & Test Transformation

• Own the Quality Engineering and test automation toolset - test case management, test automation, performance/load testing and test optimisation - and drive its modernisation.
• Lead the transformation of a large legacy manual test estate toward AI-powered, automated test orchestration, addressing known gaps such as automation script generation for legacy tooling.
• Evaluate and implement new QE and test orchestration tools and technologies, building the business case and driving adoption of best practice across the organisation.

Delivery Partner & Stakeholder Management

• Manage day-to-day delivery and performance of HCLTech and other service partners against the "Autonomous Operations” model, ensuring scalable, secure and integrated services that Product teams can trust.
• Work closely with Global IT and other PP&E chapters to ensure new initiatives with up/downstream impact on the platform are coordinated and aligned.
• Represent the platform in governance forums and executive updates, communicating strategy, risk and progress clearly to senior stakeholders.

Service Operations & Performance

• Execute platform governance - routines, controls and monitoring - and continuously improve them to drive better performance.
• Own incident, problem and change management for the platform, ensuring reliable, well-supported services for the engineering community.
• Manage delivery of new platform features, integrations and capabilities in line with the platform's roadmap and PP&E's wider strategy.

Requirements

• 8+ years of experience in IT/engineering, including significant experience in DevOps, platform engineering or quality engineering leadership roles.
• Proven people leadership experience, including managing managers and building or scaling a team, ideally within an international or offshore/India delivery model.
• Hands-on experience with enterprise DevSecOps tooling, with a preference for GitHub, Azure DevOps, Jira and Confluence.
• Working knowledge of Quality Engineering and test automation tooling (e.g. HP ALM/Worksoft, Selenium, LoadRunner, test optimisation platforms such as Panaya or LiveCompare).
• Proven experience of platform management, including:

• Defining platform strategies
• Scaling platforms in an internationally distributed environment
• Implementing platform governance
• Assessing and selecting platform technologies

• Broad technology experience beyond platform management, including project scoping and delivery, requirements analysis, solution/process design, systems administration and solution architecture.
• Experience managing outsourced or managed-service delivery partners against agreed service levels.
• Experience with cloud platforms, with a preference for Microsoft Azure (including AKS/Container Apps).
• Strong understanding of security and compliance principles, with experience implementing security controls and monitoring for vulnerabilities.
• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills, with experience operating credibly with senior (VP/CIO-level) stakeholders.
• Experience of working in diverse global teams and as part of large matrix organisations.

Nice to Have

• Exposure to AI-assisted software delivery - e.g. GitHub Copilot, Claude Code or similar agentic engineering tooling - and an interest in AI-native ways of working.
• Experience with AI-powered test orchestration or self-healing test automation platforms.
• Certification in DevSecOps, Quality Engineering, or an IT service management framework (e.g. ITIL).
• Experience with agile delivery at scale (e.g. Scrum, Kanban, SAFe).
• Knowledge or experience gained from within the CPG industry would be an advantage.

Qualifications - Soft Skills

• Empathy - you listen more than you talk, understand your internal customers deeply, and use that understanding to improve their experience of the platform.
• Ability to Simplify - you keep things simple and move fast, translating complex challenges into simple, adoptable solutions.
• Proactive - you are a self-starter who drives initiatives through to completion and is comfortable challenging the status quo to get the right result.
• Analytical - you use data to guide decisions, translating complex information into clear, actionable recommendations.
• Communication Skills - you communicate clearly and confidently in writing and verbally, including with senior leadership.
• People Leadership - you build trust quickly, develop talent, and create an environment where engineers do their best work.
• Project & Programme Management - you are organised and structured, and can bring multiple large-scale initiatives to a successful conclusion within agreed timeframes.

Location(s)

Kraft Heinz is an Equal Opportunity Employer - Underrepresented Ethnic Minority Groups/Women/Veterans/Individualswith Disabilities/Sexual Orientation/Gender Identity and other protected classes .