Director, Platform Engineering

Director, Platform Engineering

The Director, Platform Engineering will own the strategy, roadmap, and execution of InvestCloud's shared platform capabilities across on-prem and AWS. This role provides both technical and people leadership across environments, infrastructure, CI/CD, and platform services that support mission-critical client workloads.

You will lead a team of platform engineers and managers responsible for core platform services, AWS architecture, and Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC), while also helping to advance our operational shift to Bangalore. This is a hands-on leadership role: you will own strategy and roadmap, but you are also expected to dive into the details, help resolve critical issues, and directly contribute to design and implementation when needed.

The Director is accountable for platform reliability, scalability, security, cost efficiency, and developer experience, partnering closely with Application Engineering, Product, Server Ops, Network, InfoSec, and Corporate Support. This is a hybrid role with regular on-site time to stay tightly aligned with Platform, Server Ops, Product, and other key stakeholders.

Key Responsibilities

Platform Strategy & Technical Leadership

• Own the multi-year platform engineering strategy and roadmap, aligned to Tech Operations, Product, and business priorities.
• Define and maintain platform standards, reference architectures, and guardrails for application delivery, CI/CD, infrastructure, networking, and access.
• Chair or co-chair platform architecture and change forums for high-impact initiatives, including major AWS changes, CI/CD upgrades, GitLab/Artifactory patterns, and edge and ingress models.
• Evaluate and steer adoption of key platform technologies, including AWS services, GitLab, Terraform, and observability tooling, balancing reliability, security, and cost.

AWS Architecture & Cloud Platform Ownership

• Lead AWS platform architecture for shared services and application workloads, including multi-account structure, landing zones, environment segmentation, shared services, centralized logging, and security.
• Guide teams in designing and implementing solutions on AWS, including:
• Networking: VPC, Transit Gateway, peering, routing, and security groups
• Identity & Access: IAM roles, SSO integrations, and least-privilege models
• Core Services: S3, RDS, caching, messaging, and related patterns
• Edge & Ingress: integration with NGINX/other edge components and DNS/TLS standards
• Partner with Server Ops and Network Engineering on hybrid patterns spanning on-prem data centers, Kubernetes clusters, and cloud-native services.
• Work with FinOps and Finance to support capacity planning, cost visibility, and optimization for platform services.

Infrastructure as Code, Automation & CI/CD

• Drive standardization on IaC frameworks, primarily Terraform, for AWS and platform components, including opinionated modules, versioning, and governance.
• Ensure CI/CD pipelines, such as GitLab or equivalent, support secure, consistent delivery of infrastructure and application changes across environments.
• Promote automation-first approaches for provisioning, configuration, and change execution, reducing manual work and operational risk.
• Define and enforce patterns for configuration management, secrets management, and policy-as-code in the platform stack.

Core Platform Operations & Bangalore Acceleration

• Provide leadership over core platform operations, including:
• Environment lifecycle and configuration
• Platform change management and runbooks
• On-call integration with broader Tech Ops
• Partner with regional leads to advance the operational shift to Bangalore, including:
• Defining scope and ownership for Bangalore-based run/operate functions
• Building repeatable workflows, documentation, and handoffs that enable follow-the-sun operations
• Ensuring strong alignment between NA/EU and Bangalore teams on priorities, standards, and escalation paths
• Maintain a strong incident management and post-incident review culture for platform-related issues.

Reliability, Observability & Risk Management

• Set and maintain SLOs, SLIs, and error budgets for key platform services.
• Ensure robust observability through logs, metrics, traces, dashboards, and alerts for platform components using existing tooling stacks.
• Lead response for major platform incidents, coordinating cross-team triage, remediation, and stakeholder communications.
• Integrate platform engineering practices with change management and risk processes, including Jira Change Management and CAB/approval workflows.

Security, Compliance & Governance

• Partner with InfoSec and Risk to embed security-by-design into platform engineering:
• Access models for AWS accounts, CI/CD, artifacts, observability, and data stores
• TLS/certificate lifecycle, edge security, and secure connectivity patterns
• Integration of application and dependency scanning into CI/CD
• Ensure platform changes and architectures meet audit, client, and regulatory expectations, including traceable approvals and evidence.
• Support client security reviews, RFPs, and pentest remediation related to platform components.

People Leadership & Stakeholder Management

• Lead and grow a high-performing Platform Engineering organization, including managers, tech leads, and senior ICs, with a focus on global alignment across the US and Bangalore.
• Define org structure, roles, and succession plans that support both build and run responsibilities for the platform.
• Set clear goals and expectations; conduct regular 1:1s; provide coaching, feedback, and performance management.
• Act as the primary executive-level point of contact for platform topics with Tech Ops, Product, Application Engineering, and Security leadership.
• Communicate effectively with technical and non-technical audiences through concise updates on roadmap, incidents, and key metrics.

Required Qualifications

Experience

• 10+ years in platform engineering, DevOps, infrastructure, or SRE roles, including significant AWS experience.
• 5+ years in multi-team or multi-region leadership roles, including managing managers and/or large platform charters.
• Demonstrated ownership of platform roadmaps and measurable improvements in reliability, delivery speed, and/or cost.

Technical Expertise

• Deep experience operating hybrid platforms spanning on-prem data centers and AWS.
• Strong background with CI/CD and source control, such as GitLab, and modern deployment patterns.
• Hands-on understanding of AWS networking, IAM, core data services, and edge patterns.
• Proficiency with Terraform and IaC concepts at scale, including modules, state management, and promotion workflows.
• Solid grasp of observability, including logging, metrics, tracing, and operational telemetry for distributed systems.
• Familiarity with security and compliance requirements for enterprise platforms, including access control, auditability, and segmentation.

Leadership & Collaboration

• Proven ability to lead and develop distributed engineering teams, including offshore and nearshore locations.
• Strong track record collaborating with Product, Application Engineering, Security, and Operations to deliver cross-cutting platform outcomes.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including concise executive-level communication.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience as a Director or equivalent over Platform, Cloud, or DevOps in a complex enterprise or high-growth environment.
• Experience working with financial services or other regulated industries.
• Familiarity with Kubernetes and container platforms, GitOps practices, and/or service mesh technologies.
• Prior responsibility for Bangalore or similar offshore hubs, including building out run/operate capabilities.
• Relevant certifications, such as AWS, Terraform, or Kubernetes, are a plus.

Work Model

• Hybrid role with primary base in NYC or Warren, NJ.
• Regular on-site collaboration days with Platform, Server Ops, Product, and Security stakeholders.
• Occasional early/late calls to support collaboration with Bangalore