Director of Platform Engineering

AI in this role

We’re seeking a people-oriented Director of Platform Engineering to lead, develop, and empower our Platform team. This role balances strategic leadership with operational excellence - you’ll define how Platform Engineering enables the wider business while building a high-performing, engaged team. You’ll work closely with senior stakeholders, translating business objectives into platform strategy, and ensuring the team delivers scalable, reliable, and efficient solutions. The ultimate goal will be to solidify platform as a product to both internal and external customers.

Key Responsibilities

Lead, manage, and develop the Platform Engineering team, driving a culture of accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement
Define and execute the Platform Engineering strategy in alignment with wider business goals Partner with senior stakeholders across Engineering, Product, and the business to ensure platform capabilities enable delivery and growth
Own and improve platform reliability, scalability, security, and performance Establish clear KPIs and metrics to measure platform impact and team effectiveness
Drive best practices across infrastructure, DevOps, and platform capabilities (e.g. CI/CD, observability, cloud architecture, data platform)
Support career development, mentoring, and succession planning within the team
Act as a trusted deputy to the VP of Platform, stepping in as needed and contributing to wider technology leadership decisions

Skills, Knowledge & Expertise

Proven experience leading Platform, DevOps, or Infrastructure teams at a senior level; ideally within a fintech environment
Strong people leadership skills, with a track record of building and developing high-performing teams Experience defining and delivering platform strategy aligned to business outcomes
Deep understanding of modern cloud environments, infrastructure-as-code, developer tooling, internal dev platforms (IDPs) and distributed systems architecture
Familiarity with our tech stack: AWS, Azure, Terraform, Terragrunt, Pulumi, Kubernetes, Docker
Strong knowledge of DevOps principles, CI/CD pipelines, and engineering best practices
Experience driving operational excellence including reliability, monitoring, and incident management
Ability to influence and communicate effectively with senior stakeholders and non-technical audiences
Commercial awareness with experience managing budgets and optimising platform costs
A pragmatic, delivery-focused mindset with the ability to balance short-term needs and long-term strategy

How we rate this

Director of Platform Engineering at YouLend rates 29 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Little AI (AI Level 1 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.

Classification

Little AI. AI is not part of the work.