Technical Director, HR & Corp Tech Enterprise Platform Engineering

Estée Lauder Companies · Long Island City

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The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. is one of the world’s leading manufacturers, marketers, and sellers of quality skin care, makeup, fragrance, and hair care products, and is a steward of luxury and prestige brands globally. The company’s products are sold in approximately 150 countries and territories under brand names including: Estée Lauder, Aramis, Clinique, Lab Series, Origins, M·A·C, La Mer, Bobbi Brown Cosmetics, Aveda, Jo Malone London, Bumble and bumble, Darphin Paris, TOM FORD, Smashbox, AERIN Beauty, Le Labo, Editions de Parfums Frédéric Malle, GLAMGLOW, KILIAN PARIS, Too Faced, Dr.Jart+, the DECIEM family of brands, including The Ordinary and NIOD, and BALMAIN Beauty.

Position Summary

The Technical Director, HR & Corporate Technology Platform Engineering serves as the Platform Owner responsible for the platform engineering roadmap, engineering realization, lifecycle management, modernization, optimization, and long-term health of enterprise platforms supporting Human Resources and Corporate Technology. The portfolio includes technologies supporting Global HR, Global Legal, Global Security & Privacy, and Global Communications & Public Affairs, with a primary focus on the enterprise HR technology landscape. Reporting to the Executive Director, Enterprise Platform Engineering, this role provides strategic platform engineering leadership while ensuring technology capabilities remain secure, scalable, resilient, supportable, and aligned with approved functional technology strategy, product roadmaps, target-state architecture, and enterprise standards.

A significant focus of this role will be playing a prominent engineering and platform leadership role in the modernization of the enterprise HR technology landscape. The organization currently operates a legacy core HR platform alongside an established SAP SuccessFactors talent ecosystem integrated with platforms including Eightfold. As the organization evaluates its future-state Human Capital Management (HCM) architecture, this leader will provide deep HR technology and engineering expertise to inform platform evaluation and technology direction and guide engineering realization of the selected future-state solution.

The Technical Director will serve as the senior Platform Engineering authority during HCM platform evaluation, providing technical and engineering input into platform suitability, architecture, scalability, implementation feasibility, integration, security, data requirements, and long-term sustainability. The role will bring practical experience with leading enterprise HCM solutions such as SAP SuccessFactors, Workday, Oracle Cloud HCM, or comparable enterprise-grade platforms, along with demonstrated experience supporting complex global HCM transformations, implementations, integrations, and migrations from legacy HR environments. Experience with SAP SuccessFactors is particularly valuable given the organization's existing SuccessFactors talent footprint and broader SAP enterprise landscape.

Throughout the modernization journey, the Technical Director will maintain accountability for the health, stability, lifecycle, and engineering outcomes of the existing HR technology landscape while providing platform engineering leadership throughout implementation and transition to the future-state environment. The Technical Director will lead Enterprise Platform Engineering's engagement with System Integrators (SI), Enterprise Business Services (EBS), and strategic technology partners, with accountability for engineering quality, technical outcomes, production readiness, knowledge transfer, and long-term platform sustainability. This requires balancing operational continuity with modernization while ensuring successful migration, data transition, integration readiness, security and controls, engineering governance, and production acceptance.

Position Summary (Continued)

Beyond HR, the Technical Director will provide platform ownership and engineering leadership across Corporate Technology platforms supporting Global Legal, Global Security & Privacy, and Global Communications & Public Affairs. The Technical Director will partner closely with the respective Process Technology Leaders, Product leaders, Capability Design, Enterprise Product Design Engineering, Enterprise Architecture, Cyber Security, Operations & Infrastructure, EBS, and strategic partners to translate approved business capabilities and solution designs into scalable engineering solutions and coordinated platform realization plans.

The ideal candidate combines deep enterprise HR technology expertise, experience with modern enterprise HCM platforms, broad platform ownership, engineering leadership, and demonstrated success playing a technology leadership role in complex global HCM transformations. The successful candidate will also bring the leadership versatility to govern a broader Corporate Technology portfolio while building the engineering capability, partner model, and platform disciplines required to support both current-state platforms and future modernization.

Key Roles & Responsibilities

Platform Engineering Strategy, Ownership & Lifecycle (35%)

Provide strategic platform ownership and long-term technology stewardship for enterprise Human Resources and Corporate Technology platforms, ensuring platform engineering direction, lifecycle, modernization, and health remain aligned with approved functional technology strategy, product roadmaps, target-state architecture, and enterprise standards.

Responsibilities

• Own the platform engineering and lifecycle roadmap, modernization initiatives, and long-term evolution of enterprise HR and Corporate Technology platforms, aligned with approved functional technology strategy, product roadmaps, target-state architecture, and enterprise standards.
• Serve as the senior Platform Engineering authority during HCM platform evaluation, providing technical and engineering input into platform suitability, architecture, scalability, configurability, extensibility, implementation feasibility, integration capabilities, security, data requirements, release models, and long-term sustainability.
• Partner with Process Technology Leaders, Product leaders, Capability Design, Enterprise Product Design Engineering, and Enterprise Architecture to translate approved business capabilities, solution designs, and product roadmaps into coordinated platform and engineering realization plans.
• Develop and execute platform lifecycle and modernization plans that balance business priorities, technical sustainability, security, platform health, operational continuity, and future-state technology objectives.
• Maintain platform ownership of the existing HR technology landscape throughout modernization, ensuring appropriate lifecycle management, stability, reliability, supportability, and investment as capabilities transition to the future-state HCM environment.

Key Roles & Responsibilities (Continued)

• Provide strategic platform stewardship for the existing SAP SuccessFactors talent ecosystem and related technologies, including Eightfold, while ensuring current capabilities remain aligned with the broader evolution of the enterprise HCM landscape.
• Provide platform ownership and lifecycle leadership for Corporate Technology platforms supporting Global Legal, Global Security & Privacy, and Global Communications & Public Affairs, applying consistent platform governance, modernization, optimization, and technology stewardship practices.
• Establish a common platform engineering and lifecycle framework across HR and Corporate Technology, ensuring consistent approaches to modernization, technical debt, resiliency, security, supportability, and long-term sustainability.

Key Roles & Responsibilities (Continued)

Platform Ownership & Delivery Governance (30%)

Maintain accountability for successful engineering realization from build through production acceptance while governing engineering quality, platform health, implementation readiness, lifecycle execution, partner outcomes, and long-term platform sustainability.

Responsibilities

• Govern engineering realization of approved business capabilities and solution designs across Enterprise Business Services (EBS), System Integrators (SI), strategic technology partners, and Enterprise Platform Engineering.
• Play a prominent platform engineering leadership role throughout major HCM implementation activities, providing technical direction, engineering governance, implementation oversight, quality assurance, and platform decision-making within approved business, product, and architecture direction.
• Lead Enterprise Platform Engineering's engagement with System Integrators and strategic technology partners, maintaining accountability for engineering quality, technical outcomes, architecture alignment, delivery accountability, knowledge transfer, operational readiness, and long-term platform sustainability.
• Provide engineering leadership for migration from legacy HR technologies to the future-state HCM environment, including migration strategy, technical planning, data transition, integration readiness, cutover readiness, production acceptance, and operational transition.
• Establish and mature the long-term engineering operating model for the future-state HCM platform, including engineering governance, release management, lifecycle management, technical standards, enhancement delivery, platform optimization, and partnership with Enterprise Business Services (EBS).
• Establish accountability for platform health, performance, reliability, scalability, supportability, security, technical sustainability, environment strategy, release readiness, and operational readiness across HR and Corporate Technology platforms.

Key Roles & Responsibilities (Continued)

• Drive platform optimization through continuous evaluation of technology utilization, environment strategy, SaaS capabilities, technical debt, data lifecycle, engineering efficiency, automation, licensing utilization, and long-term platform sustainability.
• Proactively manage platform risks, technical dependencies, implementation challenges, and lifecycle concerns while escalating issues that could compromise approved solution designs, enterprise architecture standards, security requirements, controls, platform stability, or long-term sustainability.
• Establish and mature the engineering operating model, governance, decision rights, and escalation mechanisms across Enterprise Platform Engineering, EBS, System Integrators, strategic partners, and supporting technology teams.

Key Roles & Responsibilities (Continued)

Product Partnership & Platform Realization (20%)

Provide senior engineering leadership across Process Technology, Product, Capability Design, Enterprise Architecture, Security, Operations, and engineering organizations to ensure approved HR and Corporate Technology capabilities are successfully realized through secure, scalable, resilient, and sustainable enterprise platforms.

Responsibilities

• Partner with respective Process Technology Leaders, Product leaders, Capability Design, Enterprise Product Design Engineering, and Enterprise Architecture to translate approved business capabilities, solution designs, and product roadmaps into successful engineering realization and platform modernization plans.
• Provide senior platform engineering expertise throughout HCM evaluation and implementation activities, assessing engineering feasibility, platform sustainability, technical risk, implementation complexity, and long-term operating implications.
• Partner with Enterprise Architecture to ensure engineering solutions align with enterprise architecture standards, approved technology principles, security requirements, and established engineering patterns.
• Collaborate with Cyber Security, Privacy, Operations & Infrastructure, Enterprise Business Services (EBS), and strategic partners to ensure HR platforms meet the security, privacy, controls, resiliency, and operational requirements associated with sensitive employee information.
• Ensure the HR technology ecosystem operates effectively across adjacent enterprise capabilities, including talent, identity, payroll, Finance, data and analytics, and other dependent platforms, while partnering with the appropriate platform and integration organizations.

Key Roles & Responsibilities (Continued)

• Drive alignment across HR, Corporate Technology, Enterprise Architecture, Engineering, Operations, Security, EBS, System Integrators, and strategic partners to proactively resolve platform dependencies, engineering risks, and implementation challenges.
• Manage cross-platform dependencies, engineering sequencing, capacity, and technical risks across HR, Legal, Security & Privacy, Communications & Public Affairs, and adjacent enterprise capabilities, escalating material trade-offs through appropriate governance forums.
• Balance modernization velocity with platform stability, operational continuity, security, employee experience, and successful production transition.

Key Roles & Responsibilities (Continued)

Engineering Leadership, Platform Excellence & Organizational Capability (15%)

Build and lead the engineering capability required to successfully realize, govern, and continuously evolve HR and Corporate Technology platforms across a federated delivery model.

Responsibilities

• Provide organizational and engineering leadership across HR and Corporate Technology Platform Engineering, establishing clear accountability for engineering quality, platform health, modernization delivery, and long-term sustainability.
• Lead Enterprise Business Services (EBS), System Integrators, strategic technology partners, and Enterprise Platform Engineering resources through clear engineering governance, technical leadership, delivery accountability, and organizational alignment.
• Champion modern engineering practices, automation, AI-enabled engineering capabilities, reusable engineering assets, and continuous improvement to strengthen engineering productivity, platform quality, and technology sustainability.
• Establish strong knowledge-transfer and capability-building practices throughout major HCM implementation activities to ensure Enterprise Platform Engineering develops the expertise required to govern, enhance, and continuously evolve the future-state platform following implementation.
• Build and evolve the HR and Corporate Technology Platform Engineering capability, defining the skills, leadership structure, succession pipeline, and operating model required to support current-state platforms and future modernization.
• Develop engineering talent through mentoring, technical leadership, succession planning, knowledge sharing, and continuous learning while fostering a culture of accountability, collaboration, ownership, innovation, and engineering excellence.
• Promote engineering documentation, platform standards, operational readiness, and institutional knowledge necessary to sustain HR and Corporate Technology platforms throughout their lifecycle.

Qualifications

Enterprise HCM Platform Leadership & Expertise

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Technology, Business, Human Resources Technology, or a related field.
• 8+ years of progressive experience in enterprise application engineering, HR technology, HCM platforms, platform engineering, or technology delivery within complex global organizations.
• Demonstrated leadership experience owning or governing enterprise HR technology platforms supporting complex, global Human Resources capabilities.
• Deep experience with one or more leading enterprise HCM platforms such as SAP SuccessFactors, Workday, Oracle Cloud HCM, or comparable enterprise-grade solutions, with strong understanding of modern cloud HCM architecture, platform lifecycle management, security, extensibility, integration, and implementation considerations.
• Strong understanding of enterprise HR capabilities including Core HR, talent management, recruiting, onboarding, performance, compensation, succession, learning, workforce management, and related employee lifecycle processes.
• Experience with SAP SuccessFactors or an equivalent enterprise HCM platform, including Core HR and/or Talent capabilities, is highly desirable, with SuccessFactors experience particularly relevant given the organization's existing talent footprint and broader SAP enterprise landscape.
• Experience with talent intelligence and workforce platforms such as Eightfold, and their role within a broader enterprise HCM ecosystem, is desirable.
• Experience supporting large, geographically distributed organizations with significant regulatory, privacy, security, data, and integration requirements

Qualifications (Continued)

HCM Modernization, Implementation & Migration

• Demonstrated experience playing a technology or platform engineering leadership role in at least one major end-to-end enterprise HCM implementation, modernization, or transformation, preferably involving SAP SuccessFactors, Workday, Oracle Cloud HCM, or a comparable global cloud HCM platform.
• Experience transitioning from legacy or highly customized HR platforms to modern enterprise SaaS HCM solutions, including migration planning, data transition, integration, testing, deployment, production acceptance, and operational transition.
• Proven experience partnering with major System Integrators (SI) during enterprise HCM implementations while maintaining accountability for engineering quality, technical outcomes, architecture alignment, implementation readiness, knowledge transfer, and long-term platform sustainability.
• Experience serving as a senior Platform Engineering authority during HCM platform evaluations, providing technical and engineering input into platform suitability, architecture, scalability, configurability, extensibility, implementation feasibility, integration capabilities, security, data requirements, release models, and long-term sustainability.
• Strong understanding of global HCM implementation considerations, data migration, integration, testing, release management, security, controls, privacy, and operational readiness.
• Demonstrated ability to balance the stability and lifecycle requirements of legacy HR platforms with implementation and transition to a future-state HCM environment.

Qualifications (Continued)

Platform Engineering, Governance & Enterprise Technology

• Demonstrated experience establishing platform engineering governance, lifecycle management, release governance, environment strategy, engineering standards, platform health measures, and long-term operating models for enterprise platforms.
• Proven ability to govern engineering realization of approved business capabilities and solution designs across Enterprise Business Services (EBS), System Integrators, strategic technology partners, and cross-functional engineering teams.
• Strong understanding of enterprise SaaS architecture, APIs, integration patterns, identity and access management, cloud technologies, security, privacy, SDLC, Agile delivery, DevSecOps, and modern engineering practices.
• Experience governing complex HCM ecosystems and dependencies across areas such as payroll, identity, Finance, talent, workforce management, data and analytics, and other enterprise platforms.
• Familiarity with SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP), SAP integration and extensibility capabilities, or comparable cloud platform technologies is highly desirable.
• Ability to balance platform modernization, engineering quality, operational stability, security, privacy, technical risk, production readiness, and long-term technology sustainability.
• Demonstrated ability to establish engineering operating models, governance mechanisms, partner accountability, decision rights, and escalation processes across complex federated delivery environments.

Qualifications (Continued)

Corporate Technology, Platform Optimization & Continuous Improvement

• Experience providing platform leadership across enterprise Corporate Technology applications beyond HR is highly desirable; experience supporting Legal, Security & Privacy, Communications & Public Affairs, or other corporate functions is beneficial but not required.
• Proven ability to rapidly develop platform understanding across diverse enterprise SaaS and business application portfolios while applying consistent engineering governance, lifecycle management, platform health, and modernization practices.
• Experience managing dependencies, engineering sequencing, technical risks, and capacity across multiple enterprise platforms or technology domains.
• Experience driving platform optimization through technology rationalization, SaaS utilization management, automation, AI-enabled capabilities, technical-debt reduction, lifecycle management, and continuous improvement.
• Strong understanding of SaaS vendor ecosystems, release models, platform utilization, licensing considerations, technical obsolescence, and technology lifecycle management.
• Proven ability to identify platform risks and modernization opportunities while balancing approved business priorities, technical sustainability, platform stability, and engineering capacity.
• Commitment to engineering excellence, innovation, platform sustainability, operational discipline, and continuous improvement

Qualifications (Continued)

Leadership, Enterprise Partnership & Organizational Development

• Demonstrated success leading complex global platform engineering organizations and providing technology leadership across major enterprise transformation initiatives.
• Proven ability to build trusted partnerships with Process Technology Leaders, Product leaders, Capability Design, Enterprise Product Design Engineering, Enterprise Architecture, Cyber Security, Privacy, Operations & Infrastructure, Enterprise Business Services (EBS), System Integrators, and strategic technology partners.
• Strong executive communication, stakeholder management, organizational influence, negotiation, and decision-making skills with the ability to communicate complex technology considerations to technical and non-technical audiences.
• Demonstrated ability to lead through ambiguity and significant technology modernization while maintaining accountability for existing platform health and future-state engineering outcomes.
• Proven ability to govern System Integrator and partner delivery while establishing clear expectations and accountability for engineering quality, technical outcomes, knowledge transfer, operational readiness, and long-term platform sustainability.
• Proven ability to build and evolve engineering capabilities, including defining required skills, developing engineering leaders, succession planning, organizational capability development, and establishing sustainable knowledge transfer from implementation partners into Enterprise Platform Engineering.
• Ability to lead across a broad platform portfolio through technical credibility, organizational influence, engineering governance, and clear accountability while maintaining strong partnerships with business, Product, Process Technology, and architecture leadership.

Working Conditions & Travel Requirements

• Hybrid/global work environment requiring seamless collaboration across virtual, asynchronous channels and multiple international time zones.
• Highly optimized global coordination reduces travel requirements to 5–10% primarily for strategic portfolio alignment sessions at corporate headquarters and regional EBS technology execution hubs.

Pay Range:

The anticipated base salary range for this position is $139,850.00  to $241,550.00. Exact salary depends on several factors such as experience, skills, education, and budget. Salary range may vary based on geographic location. In addition to base salary, this position is eligible for participation in a highly competitive bonus program as well as participation in the share incentive plan. In addition,

In addition to base salary, this position is eligible for participation in a highly competitive bonus program with the possibility for overachievement based on performance and company results. In addition, The Estée Lauder Companies offers a variety of benefits to eligible employees, including health insurance coverage (medical, dental, and vision insurance), wellness and family support programs, life and disability insurance, retirement savings plans, paid leave programs, education-related programs, paid holidays and vacation time, and many others. Many of these benefits are subsidized or fully paid for by the company.

Equal Opportunity Employer

It is Company's policy not to discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, national origin, ancestry, citizenship status, age, sex or gender (including pregnancy, childbirth and related medical conditions), gender identity or gender expression (including transgender status), sexual orientation, marital status, military service and veteran status, physical or mental disability, protected medical condition as defined by applicable state or local law, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local laws and ordinances. The Company will endeavor to provide a reasonable accommodation consistent with the law to otherwise qualified employees and prospective employees with a disability and to employees and prospective employees with needs related to their religious observance or practices. Should you wish to apply for this position or any other position with the Company and you believe you require assistance to complete an application or participate in an interview, please contact USApplicantAccommodations@Estee.com.

Michigan Applicants: Persons with disabilities needing accommodations for employment must notify the company in writing of the need for an accommodation within 182 days after the date the person with a disability knew or reasonably should have known that an accommodation was needed.

Philadelphia Applicants: Philadelphia's Fair Chance Hiring Law

Rhode Island Applicants: The company is subject to chapters 29-38 of title 28 of the general laws of Rhode Island and is therefore covered by the state's workers' compensation law.

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