Head of Engineering - PE, Application Platforms
HSBC · Guangzhou
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If you’re looking for further opportunities to develop your career, take the next step in fulfilling your potential right here at HSBC.
We are currently seeking an experienced professional to join our team in the role of Head of Engineering- PE, Application Platforms.
Business:CTO
Job ID：58472
The Opportunity
CTO Platform Engineering & Architecture (CTOp), within the CTO, builds next-gen application and AI platforms that cut toil through open-source and automated controls, so teams ship code (and containers) faster, safer and more reliably.
This hands-on Head of Engineering, Principal role leads Application Platform Engineering in partnership with the Head of Application Platforms, owning outcomes end-to-end from strategy and roadmap to transparent governance and predictable delivery.
You’ll combine big-picture platform architecture with hands-on implementation to drive ~80% migration to the standard platform and consolidate six hosting platforms into one resilient, well-controlled estate, strengthening observability, operational readiness and measurable engineering standards.
What you’ll do
- Leading the engineering function for Application Platform Engineering, covering strategic direction and day-to-day execution.
- Supporting the Head of Application Platforms with end-to-end ownership of delivery, controls, and outcomes across the team.
- Establishing and operating effective governance, including prioritisation, delivery cadence, and decision-making forums.
- Defining, implementing, and tracking measurable engineering standards to improve quality, reliability, and consistency.
- Driving the migration strategy and execution to achieve ~80% application migration onto the standard platform.
- Leading the consolidation of six hosting platforms into a standard platform to reduce complexity and operational risk.
- Improving platform resilience and time-to-market through standard patterns, reusable capabilities, and streamlined delivery.
- Ensuring consistent observability practices (monitoring, logging, alerting) across the platform and migrated applications.
- Implementing automated run controls to strengthen operational management and reduce manual intervention.
- Managing delivery and control outcomes, ensuring transparency through metrics, reporting, and continuous improvement.
- Partnering with stakeholders across technology and delivery to align priorities, manage dependencies, and remove blockers.
What you will need to succeed in the role
- We are agnostic - focused on impact and outcomes: You may come with Java, Python, Node, C, C++, C# or any other coding language.
- 14+ years’ relevant senior engineering leadership experience in Platform Engineering and/or large-scale application hosting environments.
- Proven track record delivering complex technology change across multiple teams, including platform consolidation and migration programmes.
- Strong experience establishing governance, prioritisation, and delivery management practices in an engineering-led environment.
- Demonstrable ability to define and embed engineering standards with measurable outcomes (e.g., reliability, quality, delivery performance).
- Strong understanding of resilience engineering, operational risk management, and controls within enterprise technology environments.
- Strong knowledge of observability practices and operating models (monitoring, logging, alerting, SLOs/SLAs, incident management).
- Experience implementing automation for operational controls (e.g., automated runbooks, policy-as-code, standardised controls).
- Ability to drive standardisation through consistent engineering patterns and reusable platform capabilities.
- Strong stakeholder management and influencing skills across senior technology leadership and delivery partners.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills, able to translate strategy into executable plans and clear outcomes.
- Demonstrated leadership behaviours that build inclusive, high-performing teams, with clear accountability and a focus on delivery outcome.
- Note that this is a hands-on role and will be a Principal Engineer, there will be an expectation that they deliver code through to production.
- Ideally, you are capable of writing Linux kernel, know Kubernetes, understand networks from packets to TCP/UDP to service mesh.