Director,Head of Platform Engineering

Do you want your voice heard and your actions to count? Discover your opportunity with Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), one of the world’s leading financial groups. Across the globe, we’re 150,000 colleagues, striving to make a difference for every client, organization, and community we serve. We stand for our values, building long-term relationships, serving society, and fostering shared and sustainable growth for a better world.With a vision to be the world’s most trusted financial group, it’s part of our culture to put people first, listen to new and diverse ideas and collaborate toward greater innovation, speed and agility. This means investing in talent, technologies, and tools that empower you to own your career.Join MUFG, where being inspired is expected and making a meaningful impact is rewarded.MAIN PURPOSE OF THE ROLE The Head of Platform Engineering is accountable for defining and executing the Platform Engineering strategy, leading the engineering and maintenance of operationally scalable, sustainable and secure platform infrastructureThe role holder will work collaboratively with colleagues in EMEA and across the globe to lead, design and implement a platform engineering model that balances governance, innovation and business/technology productivityMUFG are seeking a transformation leader to advance scalable platform strategies that unify database, cloud, and storage technologies, driving efficiency and optimization (inclusive of process and cost) through Site Reliability EngineeringThe successful individual will standardise these environments, enabling application teams to deploy efficiently and to ensure business applications are hosted on high performing infrastructure platforms.The role holder will be accountable for launching and promoting Platform Engineering offerings to MUFG business lines including communications, education and service readiness. They will own and lead the investment planning of Platform Engineering related projects and programme measuring the optimization of the underlining infrastructure platform and effectiveness of these services delivered to the businessThe role holder will own and manage the cost of Platform Engineering technologies and associated budget, licensing and vendor relationships to ensure cost efficiency, optimisation and return on investmentThe Head of Platform Engineering is a leadership position and an integral part of the Digital Engineering Solutions and Services Leadership team. They will have a heavy focus on Infrastructure product enablement, working within an agile environment to empower Developers and promote a DevOps culture of continuous improvement, automation.This is crucial position leading the development of CI/CD pipelines, creating the foundational operating system for modern app and software engineering teams.NUMBER OF DIRECT REPORTSCirca 9KEY RESPONSIBILITIESPlanning & StrategyDevelop and execute a comprehensive Platform Engineering strategy, vision defining objectives, ensuring alignment with enterprise, digital transformation, and business objectivesDefine and deliver the platform engineering roadmap, balancing innovation, stability, scalability, and security (including DevSecOps), and incorporating emerging technologies such as generative AI and automated infrastructure provisioning supporting the organisational goals to modernise, reduce technology legacy debt, reduce technology and cyber riskLead the development and promotion of self-service platforms and CI/CD pipelines to ensure secure, automated and frequent software delivery, enhancing developer velocity and operational efficiencyAccountable for providing environment management and control. Own and govern the lifecycle, stability, and compliance of all non-production and production technology environments, ensuring controlled, secure, and optimised usage aligned to business demand, risk standards, and platform strategyDefine and enforce environment strategy, implement strict access control and segregation policies ensuring environment readiness with release management timelineProvide leadership and insight on future Platform Engineering and Product technologies and adoption of these across multiple regions and business lines to support the ongoing modernisation of the function and stay ahead of platform advancementsOwn and establish the framework for the Platform Engineering team, ensuring they align with Digital Engineering Service and Solutions department and technology business strategyOwn and manage cost and feasibility while planning and delivering Platform Engineering servicesOwn and manage the Platform Engineering budget, licensing and vendor relationships to ensure cost efficiency, optimisation and return on investmentIdentify opportunities and implement strategies for efficiency enhancement, functionalities and service quality improvement, whilst adopting technology advancements where possibleIdentify and evangelize new use cases and business opportunities enabled by engineering the platformEnsure relationships with EMEA Technology functions and business clients are actively managed to fully deliver to business requirementsOperational Excellence, Platform Management and GovernanceOperationsWork with Head of Digital Engineering Services and Solutions to deliver a reliable, sustainable, scalable and efficient operating model by leveraging best practicesAccountable for building and implementing Platform Engineering ecosystem that is robust, secure and resilientAccountable for the and end to end life cycle of all assigned Platform Engineering productsManage successful platform and product upgrades, technical debt and ensure adherence to best practiceAccountable for the tools, systems and processes required to deliver a cost-effective delivery function within EMEAAccountable for resolving platform, database, storage and cloud escalations with autonomy and experience to make final decision on prioritisation, resourcing and design configurationsAccountable for the platform design consistency across platforms, site reliability engineering, database, storage and cloud products and workflowsAccountable for ensuring that sufficient capacity is available to accommodate expected growth in all managed Platform Engineering platforms and productsResponsible for ensuring Platform Engineering Infrastructure is highly available, reliable and performantAccountable for resolving escalations and providing SME technical escalation for core Platform, Site Reliability Engineering, Build and Release, Cloud, Storage and Database technologiesGovernanceOwn and oversee the health, performance and operational integrity of platform, site reliability, database, storage and cloud infrastructure technical support teamIdentify key risks within the Platform Engineering function, assessing and mitigating those risks in accordance with the appropriate risk management frameworkEnsure accurate reporting of all KRI/KPIs for the Platform Engineering Function, systems and toolingEnsure the Platform Engineering Function operates in a controlled way in accordance with standard procedures by adhering to related security and compliance proceduresIn conjunction with EMEA Technology Risk, Security and Control, ensure that all regulatory requirements are fully complied with, including DORA assessments and appropriate defences and controls are in place to deal with all cyber risksProject /ChangeAccountable for complex, large scale Platform Engineering and Infrastructure Platform Implementations, ensuring quality, security and complianceResponsible for the definition, documentation and safe technical execution of projects, working closely with the allocated Programme / Project Manager. Actively participating in all phases of the projectAnalyse accuracy of technical demands, work in progress, take action to ensure targets are met within safety and quality procedures, including hand-over to business and operational supports teams where appropriateProvide effective investigation and technical resolutions for any issues that may occur as part of the project lifecycleInvestigate potential and actual service problems that may arise from implementation and recommend solutions. Follow formal procedures to plan and test proposed solutionsManage the technical delivery of projects within the agreed technical scope, cost and timescale across Bank and SecuritiesProvide specialized technical guidance, establish technical delivery goals and set reasonable delivery timeframesInterpret relevant regulatory, requirements and security, design and technical best practices and translate these to business aligned Digital Engineering Services and Solutions programme requirementsLeadership, Culture and People ManagementAccountable for people leadership across the Platform Engineering Function, ensuring that the team have the appropriate capabilities to be successful in their roles. Accountable for development of team with a strong focus on building future capabilitiesLead and champion MUFG’s inclusive, diverse, and values-led culture while fostering a growth mindset to embrace new technologies, industry advancements, and innovative use casesActively manage performance, develop talent, identify key positions and persons and create sustainable success plansEnsure appropriate training is in place to fulfil current and future skill requirementsLead and promote a dynamic, delivery driven culture that works alongside business units to provide responsive resolutions and value driven solutionsBuild and nurture strong relationships with internal and external stakeholders, including business teams, to promote collaboration, understand industry’s best practices, and influence positive change across the organizationLead and support location strategies prescribed from MUFG and enable transitions (where appropriate) seamlesslyWORK EXPERIENCEEssential:Proven experience of leading Technology Infrastructure Platform, Site Reliability Engineering and Build and Release teams within Financial Services and agile platform and product working environmentsExtensive experience in Platform Engineering technology, in a leadership role within a global organisation, managing a diverse technology team across multiple time zones and regions within a 24/7 production environmentStrong experience working within agile frameworks to deliver iterative platform improvementsExtensive product management and user centric experience, driving the treatment of internal platforms as products to drive adoption of internal toolsProven experience of creation extensive product and platform strategy and roadmaps and articulation of these to business line and senior stakeholdersHighly skilled platform engineer with a comprehensive background platform and systems engineering technologies, to lead the teamDemonstrable experience of senior business stakeholder management and relevant management reporting. Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to bridge the gap between technology and the business and to engage and influence stakeholders at all levels of the organizationStrong Infrastructure delivery background with evidence of successful technical delivery across multiple workstreams within the platform engineering spaceExtensive experience in managing the technical delivery for multiple workstreams with broad scope, ambiguity, and high degree of difficultyPossessing high level of analytical ability where problems are typically unusual and difficultAbility to maintain a working knowledge of platform engineering elementsAbility to coach team members and stakeholders through technical knowledge transfer and constructive feedback to address issues ranging from maintenance and performance to high visibility issues impacting manage usersExperience in working in a high-pressure environment to deliver first class servicesFamiliar with the specific standards associated with an IT practitioner’s current role: e.g. Health and safety standards; change management; incident management and problem management standards; and common service focused frameworks such as ITIL Version 3SKILLS AND EXPERIENCEFunctional / Technical Competencies:EssentialExperience in leading technical and non-technical SMEs within Site Reliability, Storage, Platform, Cloud and Database environmentsCI/CD Knowledge with experience building CI/CD workflows and managing release engineering platformsExperience of designing and implementing solutions with the following technologies: Linux, Windows, MSSQL, Oracle, Azure, OCI, AWS, VMWare, Nutanix, Linux, Windows, Kubernetes, Infrastructure as Code, MongoDB, Snowflake, SAP Sybase, Dell EMC Powerstore, Dell EMC Isilon and RubrikStrong knowledge of public cloud, containerisation and OrchestrationWide range of platform engineering technical skills to be able to bring together technical team in the production of a clear, achievable, cost-effective and supportable designCan create agreed technical plans for others to follow, documenting actions required for simple to complex problems, confirms correct functionality, supervising other SME’s where requiredTurning business problems into optimal technical designs, aligning user needs with systems requirements and organisational goalsMust be able to represent Infrastructure with credibility whilst guiding on the best technical solutions, tailoring business requirements to meet best practice and our technical standardsPlanning own work and the work of others (including third parties) to ensure delivery to time and costExperience of supplier and third-party risk managementSolid analytical/problem-solving skills with capability to identify solutions to unusual and complex problemsExperience leading large platform engineering projects and teamsExperience with complex platform engineering environments and advanced trouble shootingStrong proficiency in public cloud and containerisationUnderstanding of various project management frameworks, methodologies and principles e.g. Waterfall, Agile, Scrum, Kanban etcExperience in project and development methodologiesExperience planning and prioritising multiple work streams in response to rapidly developing and changing portfoliosEducation / Qualifications:EssentialDegree educated and / or recent technology focused qualifications with industry experienceExcellent general knowledge of IT Infrastructure (hardware, software, database, networking and cloud technologies)Preferred:An ITIL qualification preferably Foundation at version 3 or abovePERSONAL REQUIREMENTSExcellent communication and interpersonal skills with the ability to bridge the gap between technical terms and executives, articulating the platform’s return on investment in business terms, driving adoption through high trust internal partnershipsA proactive, motivated approach with a product mindsetA creative and innovative approach to work driving automation and implementing security by defaultThe ability to articulate and implement the vision/strategy for the Digital Engineering Services and Solutions department aligning platform strategy with business goalsWe are open to considering flexible working requests in line with organisational requirements.MUFG is committed to embracing diversity and building an inclusive culture where all employees are valued, respected and their opinions count. We support the principles of equality, diversity and inclusion in recruitment and employment, and oppose all forms of discrimination on the grounds of age, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability, pregnancy and maternity, race, gender reassignment, religion or belief and marriage or civil partnership.We make our recruitment decisions in a non-discriminatory manner in accordance with our commitment to identifying the right skills for the right role and our obligations under the law….