Manager, API Platform Engineering

Manager, API Platform Engineering

University Federal Credit Union (UFCU) is seeking a Manager, API Platform Engineering to lead a technical team to deliver UFCU's enterprise service layera portfolio of APIs, integrations/orchestrations, and enterprise microservices used by internally developed applications, AI initiatives, and approved third-party vendors/partners.

Reporting to the Director of Platform Engineering, this is a hands-on, "player-coach" technical leadership role that blends people management with architecture accountability. You will be responsible for architecture reviews and sign-off, platform governance, delivery execution, and 24/7 operational readiness.

Your team includes:

• API & Integration development on the MuleSoft Anypoint Platform: API development, integration patterns, orchestration, policy enforcement, and runtime operations.
• Enterprise Microservices (Kubernetes/Azure): microservices deployed to Kubernetes (AKS preferred) using Azure cloud services and enterprise engineering standards.

This role supports a hybrid work model with 2-3 days per week on-site at the UFCU Plaza building, and manager a core team of 57 FTE's, scaling with contractor resources as needed.

About UFCU

Our Credit Union was founded in 1936 and has grown to serve members throughout Texas and beyond. At UFCU, we are more than just a financial institution, and our people are more than just employees. We are dedicated to our purpose of empowering our Members to achieve financial success and build brighter futures.

In pursuit of our aspiration that UFCU is loved by millions of Members and built to thrive for generations, we are guided by our values:

• Purposefully Member-Obsessed
• Possibilities Reimagined
• Performance Excellence Rooted in Unwavering Integrity

Essential Functions

• Lead an engineering team consisting of API/Integration and Microservices resources delivering reliable, secure, reusable enterprise services and APIs.
• Provide hands-on technical leadership including:
• Architecture reviews, technical design guidance, and engineering sign-off for APIs, integrations, and microservices
• Establishing and maintaining reference architectures and engineering standards
• Own the API platform roadmap and governance, including:
• API design standards, documentation (e.g., OpenAPI), versioning, lifecycle management, and deprecation policies
• Consistent patterns for error handling, idempotency, resiliency, and backward compatibility
• Guide MuleSoft Anypoint Platform delivery and operations, including:
• API lifecycle management, policy enforcement, reusable assets, orchestration patterns, and runtime monitoring
• Performance tuning, release readiness, and operational stability
• Lead enterprise microservices engineering using C#/.NET, Kubernetes, and Azure, including:
• Service boundaries and domain alignment, contract-first/service-first approaches
• CI/CD, automated testing strategies, and secure SDLC quality gates
• Observability practices: metrics, logs, distributed tracing, dashboards, and alerts
• Ensure production reliability and operational excellence by:
• Establishing incident response practices, runbooks, post-incident reviews, and problem management
• Defining and tracking SLAs/SLOs, MTTR, reliability trends, and capacity planning
• Embed security and compliance into engineering practices, partnering with Security/Risk/Compliance to ensure:
• Secure API and service patterns (OAuth2/OIDC, mTLS where appropriate, secrets management, encryption at rest/in transit, least privilege)
• Audit readiness (change management, evidence collection, and operational controls)
• Enable internal teams, AI initiatives, and vendors by delivering:
• A clear enterprise service catalog and onboarding documentation
• Supportable integration patterns and certification/testing approaches for vendor consumption
• Manage delivery execution and team operations, including:
• Agile planning (Scrum/Kanban), prioritization, dependency management, and stakeholder communication
• Hiring, coaching, performance management, and contractor augmentation management

Knowledge / Skills / Abilities

• Strong leadership capability with a platform mindsetbuilding reusable, well-governed services that enable other teams.
• Deep knowledge of API engineering best practices, including:
• RESTful design, versioning strategies, lifecycle management, security policies, throttling, documentation, and governance
• Hands on experience with C#/.NET.
• Solid understanding of integration and orchestration patterns, including synchronous/asynchronous approaches, retries, dead-letter handling, and resiliency.
• Working expertise in microservices architecture and distributed systems concepts:
• Service boundaries, reliability patterns (timeouts, circuit breakers), data ownership considerations, performance, and scalability
• Demonstrated ability to perform architecture reviews and provide technical sign-off without creating delivery bottlenecks.
• Operational discipline and comfort owning production outcomes, including:
• Incident response leadership, escalation management, postmortems, and continuous improvement
• Practical knowledge of modern engineering practices:
• CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, code quality gates, security scanning, and deployment strategies
• Strong communication and stakeholder management skills:
• Ability to translate technical tradeoffs into business impact and align cross-functional partners
• Preferred domain knowledge:
• Financial services/credit union/banking technology considerations, risk awareness, and compliance mindset
• Familiarity with BIAN concepts for capability/service domain alignment and service taxonomy (preferred)

Experience

Minimum Requirements

• 5+ years leading engineering teams (people management, delivery accountability, coaching/development).
• Experience delivering microservices (Java/C#/.NET) and deploying to Kubernetes
• Proven experience delivering and operating enterprise APIs and/or integration platforms in production environments.
• Experience guiding teams building scalable backend services including CI/CD and operational ownership.
• Demonstrated experience leading architecture reviews and enforcing engineering standards (design patterns, security, reliability).
• Experience integrating with enterprise observability tools (i.e. Grafana, Datadog etc.)
• Ability to work hybrid with 2-3 days/week on-site in the Austin, TX area.
• Willingness and ability to lead incident response when necessary.

Preferred Requirements

• Hands-on experience with MuleSoft Anypoint Platform (e.g., API Manager, Exchange, Runtime Manager, monitoring/alerts, policy management).
• Experience with Azure cloud services supporting APIs/microservices (e.g., identity, secrets management, monitoring, messaging/eventing, data services).
• Experience in financial services or another regulated environment with strong security/compliance expectations.
• Knowledge of BIAN framework and/or capability-based service domain modeling.
• Experience scaling delivery with a mix of FTE and contractor resources, including vendor/contract management.

Things You Need to Know Before You Apply

Physical Demands

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee in order to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

• While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to sit; use hands to finger, handle or feel; reach with hands and arms; and talk or hear.
• Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, distance vision, peripheral vision and ability to adjust focus.
• The employee is frequently required to stand and walk.
• Employee will make extensive use of the telephone requiring the ability to effectively and accurately explain complex information.

Work Environment

The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals