Vice President, Platform Engineering

Vice President, Platform Engineering

Department: Information Technology

Employment Type: Full Time

Location: US-North Carolina-Raleigh

Description

The Vice President, Platform Engineering is a member of the Technology leadership team and is accountable for the technology platforms that power Align’s digital products and operations: Data, AI, Cloud, API, and Identity. This leader sets the strategy, architecture, and operating model for these platforms and treats them as products that let engineering and business teams build faster, more securely, and at scale.

The VP translates business needs into a coherent platform architecture and serves as the primary technical and business authority on Align's platform capabilities. Responsibilities span engineering, securing, and optimizing cloud infrastructure; building a trusted, well-governed data foundation; delivering shared AI and machine learning capabilities with responsible AI guardrails; and providing secure identity and API services for workforce, customer, and partner ecosystems. The role ensures all platforms meet regulatory and compliance requirements, including SOX, PCI DSS, and applicable privacy regulations.

This leader builds and scales high-performing engineering teams and partners closely with R&D, product, security, and business stakeholders. Strong technical depth, influential leadership, and the ability to drive change in a complex, fast-moving enterprise environment are essential.

The role reports to the Chief Digital Officer and is located in San Jose, CA, or Raleigh, NC.

Role expectations

Platform Strategy and Leadership

• Define and own the multi-year vision, strategy, and roadmap for Align’s enterprise platforms (Data, AI, Cloud, API, and Identity), making sure they directly enable the company’s digital product and business strategy.
• Build, lead, and scale high-performing platform engineering organizations. Attract and develop top talent, and foster a culture of engineering excellence, ownership, and continuous improvement.
• Operate the platforms as products, with clear internal customers, service levels, adoption metrics, and feedback loops, so product and engineering teams can build faster and more reliably.
• Partner with the Chief Digital Officer, business unit leaders, R&D, product, security, and infrastructure teams to translate business needs into platform capabilities and build consensus on architecture and investment priorities.
• Own platform budgets, vendor strategy, and build-versus-buy decisions. Lead technology evaluations, RFI/RFP processes, proofs of concept, and vendor negotiations.
• Establish architecture standards, reference patterns, and governance that drive modular, reusable, and well-abstracted solutions across the product and enterprise portfolio.

Data Platform

• Lead the architecture, engineering, and operation of the enterprise data platform, including data lake/lakehouse, warehousing, streaming, and integration capabilities.
• Deliver scalable, reliable data pipelines and event-driven data flows that give analytics, AI, and operational systems trusted, timely data.
• Implement data governance, quality, lineage, cataloging, and master data practices that make data discoverable, accurate, and compliant.
• Ensure appropriate protection of sensitive and regulated data, including patient and customer data, in line with privacy regulations (e.g., HIPAA, GDPR).

AI Platform

• Define and execute the enterprise AI platform strategy, providing shared infrastructure, tooling, and services that let teams build, deploy, and scale AI and machine learning solutions safely and efficiently.
• Lead integration with foundation model providers and AI platforms (e.g., OpenAI, Anthropic, AWS), including model access, orchestration, retrieval, agent frameworks, and evaluation capabilities.
• Establish MLOps and LLMOps practices for model training, deployment, monitoring, versioning, and cost management.
• Implement responsible AI guardrails, including security, privacy, bias, and safety controls, in partnership with legal, compliance, and security.
• Continuously evaluate emerging AI technologies and drive adoption of those that deliver measurable business value.

Cloud Platform

• Own the architecture, engineering, security, and optimization of Align’s cloud and hybrid infrastructure, with AWS as the primary cloud environment.
• Deliver self-service infrastructure, container orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes), and internal developer platform capabilities that improve release velocity, developer productivity, and system stability.
• Drive the adoption of DevSecOps, CI/CD, infrastructure-as-code, and observability best practices across cloud and on-premises environments.
• Lead re-platforming and modernization of legacy systems to cloud-native architectures.
• Manage cloud cost, performance, resilience, and disaster recovery through FinOps practices and SRE disciplines.
• Partner with R&D to manage and integrate engineering tools (e.g., Jira, Confluence, GitHub), driving efficient adoption across the engineering organization.

Identity and API Platform

• Lead the Identity and Access Management strategy for workforce, customer, and partner identities, including SSO, MFA, privileged access, and lifecycle management, using standards such as OAuth, OIDC, and SAML.
• Advance zero-trust security principles across applications, endpoints, and infrastructure.
• Build and scale the enterprise API platform, including API gateway, management, developer portal, and lifecycle governance, so internal teams and external partners can integrate securely and consistently.
• Drive API-first and event-driven integration patterns (e.g., Kafka) that decouple systems and accelerate the delivery of new digital products.
• Define API design standards, versioning, security, and monitoring practices across the enterprise.

Security, Compliance, and Operational Excellence

• Ensure all platforms meet regulatory and compliance requirements, including SOX and PCI DSS, and maintain audit readiness.
• Embed secure-by-design principles and secure code practices throughout platform engineering.
• Define and report on platform KPIs, including availability, performance, adoption, developer experience, and cost efficiency.
• Maintain current documentation of platform architecture, integrations, and dependencies across the enterprise portfolio.

Additional responsibilities:

• Other duties may be assigned

What we're looking for

Leadership and Experience

• 10 or more years of professional experience in large-scale, distributed technology environments, including at least 8–10 years in enterprise or platform architecture.
• Proven senior leadership experience building and managing multi-disciplinary platform organizations spanning data, AI, cloud, and/or identity and API engineering.
• Demonstrated success operating internal platforms as products, with measurable improvements in developer productivity, reliability, adoption, and cost efficiency.
• Proven track record re-platforming large legacy systems to modern, cloud-native architectures.
• Experience managing significant budgets, vendor relationships, and technology selection processes, including RFI/RFP, proofs of concept, and quantitative and qualitative evaluation.

Data Platform

• Deep experience with modern data architectures, including data lakes/lakehouses, warehousing, streaming, and data integration.
• Strong understanding of data governance, quality, lineage, cataloging, and the protection of sensitive and regulated data.

AI Platform

• Strong technical background in AI and machine learning, with hands-on experience building or integrating AI platforms, models, and AI-driven services or agents.
• Familiarity with foundation model providers (e.g., OpenAI, Anthropic, AWS), MLOps/LLMOps practices, and model evaluation and monitoring.
• Commitment to responsible and ethical AI, including safety, privacy, and governance controls.

Cloud Platform

• Extensive experience with AWS or an equivalent cloud provider, including architecture, security, cost optimization, and resilience.
• Hands-on experience with microservices and containerized applications (Docker, Kubernetes), distributed caching, and load balancing.
• Experience implementing DevSecOps, CI/CD, infrastructure-as-code, observability, and SRE practices at scale.

Identity and API Platform

• Strong expertise in Identity and Access Management, including SSO, MFA, privileged access, and zero-trust architectures, with authentication standards such as OAuth, OIDC, and SAML.
• Deep understanding of API ecosystems, API management and governance, and partner integration dynamics.
• Validated experience with SOA, design patterns, web services standards ( REST, JSON, XML, SOAP), and event-driven architecture using Kafka or similar technologies.

Security and Compliance

• Experience delivering platforms in regulated environments, with working knowledge of SOX, PCI DSS, and privacy regulations such as HIPAA and GDPR.
• Strong grounding in secure code development and security-by-design principles.

Communication and Influence

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to present effectively to executives, technologists, business stakeholders, and IT teams.
• Strong interpersonal and influencing skills, with a track record of building consensus and collaboration across functions.
• Ability to lead cross-functional initiatives involving product, engineering, security, partnerships, and business units.

EDUCATION and/or EXPERIENCE

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, related field, or equivalent experience.
• 8-10 years of enterprise architecture experience.

PHYSICAL DEMANDS & WORK ENVIRONMENT

• The physical demands and work environment characteristics described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job.
• Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.
• Physical Demands: While performing the duties of this job, the employee is occasionally required to stand, walk, sit, and use hands to handle objects and tools; reach with hands and arms; talk and hear. Employee must occasionally lift and/or move light to moderate weight. Specific vision abilities required by the job include close vision and the ability to adjust focus.
• Work Environment: The noise level and temperature in the work environment are usually moderate.
• Work Schedule / Hours: Regular business hours.

Pay Transparency

If provided, base salary or wage rate ranges are the range in which Align reasonably expects to set a candidate’s pay for the posted position. Actual placement depends on the individual skills and experience level of a candidate plus the total compensation and equity across team members. For other locations outside of the primary location, the base salary range will be adjusted geographically.

For Field Sales roles, the salary listed is the base pay only and does not include the applicable incentive compensation plan. A cost of living adjustment may be added to base pay for higher cost areas in the U.S.

Our internship hourly rates are a standard pay determined based on the position and your location, year in school, degree, and experience.

General Description of All Benefits

• Discounts on Invisalign and Vivera to employees and their eligible dependents after 90 days of employment
• Back-up Child/Elder Care and access to a caregiving concierge
• Family Forming Benefits – Available to Employees, and their spouse or domestic partner, covered under one of Align’s health plans
• Breast Milk Delivery and Lactation Support Services
• Employee Assistance Program
• Hinge Health Virtual Physical Therapy – Available to all employees and eligible dependents (age 18+) enrolled in an Align medical Plan

Employee benefits. Align offers its employees:

• Short-term and long-term disability insurance in accordance with those plans.
• Basic Life Insurance and Accidental Death and Dismemberment. Voluntary Supplemental Life Insurance for Employee, Spouse/Domestic Partner, and Child(ren) are available for purchase in accordance with those plans.
• Flexible Spending Accounts– Employees may be eligible to participate in a health care account (including a limited health FSA if enrolled in a HDHP), dependent care account, and a pre-tax commuter benefit plan.
• 401k plan (with a discretionary Company match of 50% up to 6% of eligible earnings up to a maximum match of 3%). Employer match vests after two years – 25% year one and 100% at year two. Align offers traditional, Roth, and after-tax options.
• Employee Stock Purchase Program (Employees must work 20 hours or more and be employed on purchase date to be eligible).
• Paid vacation of up to 17 days during the first full year of employment (currently accrued at the rate of 5.24 hours each pay-period), which carries over to a maximum cap of 30 days. Annual paid vacation time accrual increases based on tenure. Both exempt and non-exempt employees who work 32 hours or more per week receive prorated vacation accrual based on their regularly scheduled work hours and tenure.
• Sick time is accrued throughout the year at the rate of one hour for every thirty worked. Employees can carry over unused sick leave each year, up to a maximum balance of 80 hours.
• 11 Company-designated paid holidays throughout the year.
• If employed for at least 12 consecutive months, Align will grant up to 6 weeks of paid Parental Leave. If employed for less than 12 consecutive months, Align will grant up to 4 weeks of paid Parental Leave. All parental leave must be completed within one year of the birth or placement of the child. Parental leave is in addition to any state and/or local parental leave benefits. Three days of paid bereavement leave. In some cases, due to travel the amount of paid leave may be extended to 5 paid days off. To the extent applicable state or local law offers more generous benefits, Align complies with any such law.
• Non-exempt employees will receive full pay for up to 10 days of jury duty. Exempt employees will receive their full salary during any week they serve and perform any work. Other insurance such as legal, critical illness, voluntary accident, long-term care, auto, home and pet insurance are available for purchase.

To the extent applicable state or local law offers more generous benefits, Align complies with any such law.