Director, Product Software Engineering | Platform Engineering and Architecture (Houston)

About the Role:As a Director in Software Engineering, you will provide comprehensive leadership to senior managers and high-level professionals. You will have primary responsibility for the performance and results within your area, ensuring that all software engineering activities align with business strategies. Your role is crucial for steering the direction of major projects and technological advancements that will drive the company forward.Job Description:We are seeking a “full-stack” engineering Director to hire and lead a team that will be responsible for selection provides leadership to > 600 engineers on the use, adoption and automation around infrastructure as code, the operational management of container deployment platforms and the CI/CD and applications required. Additionally, they will be engaged on incidents for triage and resolution along with driving teams to implement automation to address., implement, and continuously improve the developer enablement and infrastructure platform, accelerating product delivery and operational excellence across Kubernetes-based environments. The ideal candidate will understand how to guide the definition, execution, and governance of release processes and platform capabilities; operates with broad latitude and accountability for outcomes aligned to divisional strategy. Work is performed without appreciable direction and is evaluated on execution against defined plans and strategy, with measurable impact on divisional results.SUPERVISORY RELATIONSHIPSReports To: VP of Platform Engineering & ArchitectureSupervises: Senior managers, managers, and high-level professionals across developer enablement, platform engineering, and SRE functions.ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIESStrategy & LeadershipProvide strategic leadership, vision, and roadmaps for developer enablement and infrastructure engineering in a highly matrixed organization; ensure alignment with business objectives and partner teams.Establish clear objectives, success measures, and investment priorities for the platform, balancing reliability, velocity, cost, and risk.Model inclusive collaboration and effective communication with senior management, peers, and subordinates to drive alignment and execution.Drive adoption of AI Developer Tools to drive speed to market and reduce developer friction.Developer Enablement Platform OwnershipLead the Developer Enablement team that owns the platform for releasing container-based software to Kubernetes (K8s); define platform SLAs/SLOs, roadmaps, and service catalog.Own Akuity/Argo CD (GitOps) administration and lifecycle; define guardrails, RBAC, multi-cluster promotion strategies, and drift detection/rollback practices.Maintain and evolve Open Application Model (OAM) templates, golden paths, and paved-road workflows to standardize microservice onboarding and runtime config.Govern end-to-end container release processes (policy, controls, approvals, and tooling), including promotion workflows, artifact provenance (SBOM/SLSA), and progressive delivery (blue/green, canary).Integrate and Maintain Developer Enablement metrics reporting into central data lake environments.Infrastructure Development & SRE Team BuildoutStaff, train, and mature a new team that becomes the core of infrastructure development and SRE; define role architecture, hiring profiles, onboarding plans, and growth paths.Deliver platform capabilities as products (self-service, APIs, documentation, runbooks), enabling product teams to design, provision, and operate infrastructure consistently.Train and assist engineering teams with infrastructure design and deployment (networking, storage, data, security, observability), while performing hands-on engineering to ensure deployments and operations are fully automated (IaC, GitOps, policy-as-code, CI/CD).Establish site reliability practices—SLO/SLI, error budgets, incident management, post-incident reviews, and capacity/performance engineering—aligned with product objectives.Governance, Risk, and ComplianceDefine release governance and change management controls (e.g., segregation of duties, approval workflows, audit trails) integrated into platform tooling, partner with Security, Risk, and Compliance for continuous assurance.Ensure adherence to quality standards and secure-by-design practices across the software supply chain.JOB QUALIFICATIONSEducation (Required):Bachelor’s Degree in a related field and relevant experience in product software engineering.Work Experience (Required):Minimum 9+ years of relevant experience in product software engineering or platform/SRE leadership roles.People management experienceExperience in Matrixed environments.Knowledge and interest in AITechnical competence in platform engineering and architecturePreferred Experience & Knowledge (Role-Specific):Platform engineering for Kubernetes at scale (multi-cluster/multi-region), GitOps (Argo CD/Akuity), service meshes, secrets management.Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform/Pulumi), policy-as-code (OPA/Gatekeeper), progressive delivery (Argo Rollouts/Flagger).CI/CD at enterprise scale (artifact provenance, SBOM/SLSA), container security, and supply chain controls.Observability platforms (metrics, logs, traces, SLOs, alerts) and incident management practices.Coaching product teams; operating in a matrixed enterprise with strong stakeholder management.SKILLS / COMPETENCIESTechnical/Operational SkillsDevOps & Agile delivery; automation and continuous delivery at scale.Cloud computing (Azure/AWS/GCP) and modern application architectures; API-first enablement.Automation & Frameworks for standardized delivery and code manageability across teams.Application Security and secure SDLC; Architectural Patterns for scalable, resilient systems.Financial/Budget Management for platform services and shared-service cost models that includes understanding of how to use technology to drive cost reductions while increasing value delivery. This requires budget, technical and operational competencies.Experience in both use of AI Coding tools personally and in driving adoption of those in developer teams.Leadership CompetenciesAccountability; Judgement & Decision-Making; Business Acumen to drive measurable outcomes.Inclusive Collaboration; Inspiration & Alignment; Courage to take smart risks that enable innovation.People Management: delegation, coaching, performance management, and talent development.KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS (KPIs)Velocity & Flow: Lead time for change; deployment frequency; PR cycle time (open-to-merge).Reliability: Service SLO attainment; MTTI/MTTR; change failure rate.Adoption & Self-Service: of services on Gantry; % workloads on paved paths/OAM templates; % infra as code.Quality & Security: Policy compliance rate; supply-chain attestations; pipeline pass rate; vulnerability MTTR.Experience & Enablement: Developer NPS; onboarding time to first deploy; “friction index” trend.Overall infrastructure cost reduction while increasing all of the above.WORKING CONDITIONSTravel: 20%Work Arrangement: Hybrid onsite in the WK posted locations.Our Interview PracticesTo maintain a fair and genuine hiring process, we kindly ask that all candidates participate in interviews without the assistance of AI tools or external prompts. Our interview process is designed to assess your individual skills, experiences, and communication style. We value authenticity and want to ensure we’re getting to know you—not a digital assistant. To help maintain this integrity, we ask to remove virtual backgrounds and include in-person interviews in our hiring process. Please note that use of AI-generated responses or third-party support during interviews will be grounds for disqualification from the recruitment process.Applicants may be required to appear onsite at a Wolters Kluwer office as part of the recruitment process.Compensation:$179,200.00 - $320,200.00 USDThis role is eligible for Bonus.Compensation range listed is based on primary location of the position. Actual base salary offer is influenced by a wide array of factors including but not limited to skills, experience and actual hiring location. Your recruiter can share more information about the specific offer for the job location during the hiring process. Additional Information:Wolters Kluwer offers a wide variety of competitive benefits and programs to help meet your needs and balance your work and personal life, including but not limited to: Medical, Dental, & Vision Plans, 401(k), FSA/HSA, Commuter Benefits, Tuition Assistance Plan, Vacation and Sick Time, and Paid Parental Leave. Full details of our benefits are available upon request. SummaryLocation: USA - Coppell, TX; USA - Cary, NC; USA - Draper, UT; USA - Austin, TX; USA-TX-Austin-Southwest Pkwy; USA - Kennesaw, GA; USA - Houston, TX, Allen Pkwy; USA - Wichita, KSType: Full time