Director, Platform Engineering & Dev Ops

Fortrea · Warsaw

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The Director, Platform Engineering & DevOps is responsible for supporting and executing Fortrea's Platform Engineering, DevOps, Cloud Engineering, and Software Delivery strategy in alignment with established enterprise standards. This leader is accountable for managing the engineering platforms, cloud infrastructure, automation capabilities, and developer experience that enable secure, scalable, reliable, and efficient software delivery across the enterprise.

This role will lead Fortrea's transformation toward a modern engineering platform by driving adoption of AI-assisted software engineering, cloud-native architectures, Internal Developer Platforms (IDPs), DevSecOps, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), Infrastructure as Code (IaC), GitOps, and intelligent automation practices.

Working closely with Product Engineering, Architecture, Security, Data & AI, Infrastructure, and Technology Leadership, the Director will establish the technical foundations that accelerate engineering productivity, improve developer experience, increase deployment velocity, strengthen operational resilience, and enable engineering teams to rapidly deliver innovative, high-quality products.

This position is accountable for engineering productivity, software delivery performance, cloud engineering standards, platform reliability, operational excellence, AI-enabled engineering capabilities, and continuous modernization of Fortrea's engineering ecosystem.

 HYBRID ROLE IN WARSAW

Summary of Responsibilities:

• Support and execute Fortrea's Platform Engineering, DevOps, Cloud Engineering, and Software Delivery strategy aligned with business and technology objectives.
• Build, lead, mentor, and develop Engineering Managers, Platform Engineers, DevOps Engineers, Site Reliability Engineers, Cloud Engineers, and technical leaders while creating strong succession plans and career development opportunities.
• Establish and evolve Internal Developer Platforms (IDPs), reusable engineering services, self-service developer capabilities, golden paths, engineering templates, and developer portals that improve engineering productivity and reduce cognitive load.
• Treat engineering platforms as products by partnering with engineering teams, measuring platform adoption, collecting customer feedback, and continuously improving platform capabilities.
• Lead enterprise adoption of AI-assisted software engineering tools and intelligent automation that improve software development, infrastructure provisioning, testing, documentation, deployment, security validation, operational support, and engineering productivity.
• Evaluate emerging AI technologies including coding assistants, AI agents, autonomous remediation, predictive operations, and intelligent engineering platforms.
• Drive enterprise engineering modernization through cloud-native architectures, Kubernetes, containers, GitOps, Infrastructure as Code, CI/CD, DevSecOps, automation-first engineering practices, and platform engineering.
• Establish enterprise standards for CI/CD pipelines, Infrastructure as Code, release automation, cloud operations, configuration management, deployment automation, and engineering governance.
• Build scalable cloud platforms supporting modern software delivery using Microsoft Azure, Kubernetes, serverless technologies, API management, and cloud-native services.
• Establish Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) practices including Service Level Objectives (SLOs), Service Level Indicators (SLIs), error budgets, operational readiness reviews, reliability engineering, and resilience frameworks.
• Drive enterprise adoption of DevSecOps practices including security-by-design, software supply chain security, secrets management, automated compliance, vulnerability management, SBOM generation, and secure software delivery.
• Champion Developer Experience (DevEx) initiatives through self-service engineering platforms, engineering automation, developer tooling, standardized environments, and streamlined software delivery workflows.
• Support observability initiatives including OpenTelemetry, monitoring, logging, tracing, alerting, telemetry, dashboards, operational intelligence, and application performance monitoring.
• Implement AIOps capabilities leveraging machine learning and intelligent automation for anomaly detection, predictive monitoring, automated incident correlation, root cause analysis, and operational insights.
• Define and monitor engineering performance using DORA Metrics, SPACE Framework principles, deployment frequency, lead time for change, change failure rate, mean time to recovery (MTTR), platform adoption, developer productivity, availability, and service health metrics.
• Partner with Architecture teams to establish scalable, secure, API-first, cloud-native technology platforms that support Fortrea's long-term engineering strategy.
• Collaborate with Product Engineering, Security, Infrastructure, Data & AI, Architecture, and Technology Leadership to support engineering strategy, investment priorities, platform roadmaps, and modernization initiatives.
• Drive cloud governance, FinOps practices, infrastructure optimization, capacity planning, cost management, and operational efficiency.
• Lead workforce planning, organizational design, talent acquisition, succession planning, leadership development, and continuous learning across the Platform Engineering organization.
• Manage engineering budgets, technology investments, strategic vendor partnerships, resource planning, and platform lifecycle management.
• Foster a high-performance engineering culture centered on ownership, innovation, automation-first thinking, operational excellence, engineering quality, experimentation, collaboration, continuous improvement, and customer outcomes.
• Continuously evaluate emerging technologies, AI capabilities, engineering platforms, cloud services, and automation opportunities that improve software delivery and operational excellence.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Qualifications (Minimum Required):

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or related discipline. Equivalent experience will be considered.
• Advanced knowledge of Platform Engineering, DevOps, Cloud Engineering, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), Software Delivery, and modern engineering practices.
• Strong understanding of cloud-native architectures, distributed systems, Kubernetes, containers, Infrastructure as Code, GitOps, CI/CD, and enterprise software engineering.
• Strong knowledge of Microsoft Azure and modern cloud engineering practices, with familiarity across AWS and Google Cloud Platform.
• Deep understanding of DevSecOps, cloud security, secure software development lifecycle, compliance automation, software supply chain security, and operational governance.
• Demonstrated success leading enterprise engineering transformations and building high-performing engineering organizations.
• Exceptional leadership, communication, organizational development, stakeholder management, and executive influencing skills.
• Ability to define long-term engineering strategy while delivering measurable business outcomes.

Experience (Minimum Required): 

• 10+ years of progressive experience in Platform Engineering, DevOps, Cloud Engineering, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), Infrastructure Engineering, or related engineering disciplines.
• 5+ years leading Engineering Managers, Platform Engineering teams, DevOps organizations, or globally distributed engineering organizations.

• Demonstrated experience supporting and executing Platform Engineering, DevOps, or Cloud Engineering strategies within established enterprise standards.

• Proven experience implementing Internal Developer Platforms (IDPs), self-service engineering platforms, reusable engineering capabilities, and platform-as-a-product operating models.
• Experience leading enterprise cloud transformations, CI/CD modernization, Infrastructure as Code, release automation, GitOps, and cloud-native platform engineering initiatives.
• Demonstrated success implementing AI-assisted software engineering and intelligent automation to improve engineering productivity and software delivery.
• Experience establishing engineering standards for software delivery, operational reliability, platform engineering, cloud engineering, and engineering governance.
• Experience implementing DORA Metrics, engineering productivity metrics, operational KPIs, reliability engineering, and continuous improvement programs.
• Experience partnering with Product Engineering, Architecture, Data & AI, Security, Infrastructure, and Executive Leadership to deliver enterprise engineering capabilities.
• Experience managing technology investments, vendor relationships, budgets, workforce planning, and organizational development.
• Demonstrated success leading globally distributed engineering organizations within complex enterprise environments.

Preferred Qualifications Include:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Technology, Business Administration, or related field.
• Experience within healthcare, life sciences, clinical research, medical devices, or other highly regulated industries.
• Experience leading enterprise Platform Engineering or cloud modernization initiatives.
• Experience implementing AI-assisted software engineering using GitHub Copilot Enterprise, GitHub Models, Cursor, Claude Code, Windsurf, ChatGPT Enterprise, or similar developer productivity platforms.
• Experience integrating Azure OpenAI, OpenAI APIs, Anthropic Claude, Google Vertex AI, Azure AI Services, or equivalent enterprise AI platforms.
• Experience building AI-powered engineering solutions including intelligent automation, AI agents, infrastructure automation, operational intelligence, deployment validation, and engineering copilots.
• Experience with Model Context Protocol (MCP), Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), prompt engineering, Responsible AI, AI governance, and enterprise AI security.
• Expertise with Kubernetes, Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Docker, Helm, ArgoCD, GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps, Terraform, Pulumi, Crossplane, Backstage, API Management, Azure Landing Zones, and Infrastructure as Code.
• Experience implementing enterprise observability using OpenTelemetry, Datadog, Dynatrace, Grafana, Prometheus, Elastic, Azure Monitor, or equivalent platforms.
• Experience implementing FinOps, cloud governance, and cloud cost optimization strategies.
• Relevant certifications in Microsoft Azure, Kubernetes, Cloud Architecture, DevOps, Platform Engineering, AI Engineering, Agile Delivery, or Technology Leadership.
• Demonstrated success building world-class Platform Engineering organizations, developing future technology leaders, and fostering a culture of engineering excellence, innovation, and continuous learning.

Physical Demands / Work Environment:

Office/Home-Based:

Work Environment:

• Work is performed in an office environment with exposure to electrical office equipment.
• Occasional drives to site locations with occasional travel both domestic and international.

Physical Requirements:

• Frequently stationary for 6-8 hours per day.
• Repetitive hand movement of both hands with the ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
• Occasional crouching, stooping, with frequent bending and twisting of upper body and neck.
• Ability to access and use a variety of computer software developed both in-house and off-the-shelf.
• Light to moderate lifting and carrying, or moving of objects, including luggage and laptop computer with a maximum lift of 15-20 lbs.
• Regular and consistent attendance.
• Varied hours may be required.

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