Engineering Lead (Developer Platform & AI-enabled SDLC)

Virgin Australia Airlines; City of Brisbane; On-site; AUD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Discounted flights for you and loved-1

Flexible, hybrid work style

Discounts on travel insurance, lounge,

Wellbeing support and discounts

Dress for Your Day

Job summary

Virgin Australia Airlines is building a new Platform Engineering capability to make software delivery simpler, faster and more secure across the enterprise. This Engineering Lead – Developer Platform & AI-enabled SDLC role partners with Engineering, Product and Security to shape the internal developer platform as a product.

You will lead, coach and grow the team, drive the platform vision and establish secure, self-service capabilities that reduce cognitive load and accelerate delivery while

Qualifications

• Experience leading the design or evolution of an internal developer platform or developer-experience capability.
• Strong software engineering background with hands-on technical leadership.
• Experience treating an internal platform as a product with user discovery and measured adoption.

Responsibilities

• Grow the platform engineering team and operating model.
• Contribute to platform vision and roadmap using data and feedback.
• Deliver a minimum viable platform increment with developer journeys prioritized for value.
• Design composable platform capabilities with APIs, automation, and templates.
• Embed testing, observability, and policy as code into delivery workflows.
• Establish SLIs for the platform and measure adoption and reliability.
• Hire, coach and develop engineers and foster an inclusive culture.

Skills

Leadership

Internal developer platform

Cloud platforms

Infrastructure as Code

AI-enabled SDLC

Team coaching

Product thinking

Security & risk awareness

Tools

Platform engineering tooling

APIs & automation

Job description

Engineering Lead – Developer Platform & AI-enabled SDLC

Internal role tile – Engineering Lead

We’re the airline that dares to be different, bold, down-to-earth and built around giving our guests real choice. Safety is our backbone, service is our heartbeat, and our people are our superpower.

We’re vibrant, authentic and unapologetically human. Here, you can bring your whole self, your Virgin Flair and your ambition to a team that champions individuality, innovation and a whole lot of heart. If you’re excited by meaningful work, real opportunities to grow, and a culture where you can genuinely make a difference, you’ll feel right at home with us.

Our ambition is to build the airline people love, and technology is central to making that happen. We're building a new Platform Engineering capability that will make software delivery simpler, faster and more secure across the enterprise. If you're passionate about cloud platforms, engineering excellence and enabling other engineers to do their best work, we'd love to hear from you.

What you'll be doing…

As Engineering Lead – Developer Platform & AI-enabled SDLC, you'll work closely with the Engineering Manager to help establish and grow the team responsible for Virgin Australia's internal developer platform and golden paths. You'll treat the platform as a product, with our engineers as its customers, creating secure, reliable and self-service capabilities that make the preferred way of delivering software the easiest way. This is a player-coach role combining team leadership, product thinking and hands‑on technical direction. You'll work across Engineering, Product, Security, Architecture, Risk and Operations to reduce developer cognitive load and improve the speed, safety and reliability of software delivery.

This role will report to the Manager, Engineering.

• Help grow the platform engineering team, its operating model, engineering practices and ownership boundaries.
• Contribute to the platform vision and roadmap using developer research, workflow data and continuous feedback.
• Deliver a minimum viable platform incrementally, beginning with the developer journeys where improved self‑service will create the greatest value.
• Design composable platform capabilities exposed through clear APIs, automation, templates, documentation and developer‑facing workflows.
• Create golden paths with secure defaults, actionable feedback and appropriate escape hatches—enabling teams without unnecessarily constraining them.
• Embed automated testing, observability, resilience, policy as code and software‑supply‑chain controls into delivery workflows.
• Establish service‑level objectives for the platform and measure its impact through adoption, developer experience, delivery performance, reliability, security and cost outcomes.
• Create contribution and extension models that allow engineering teams to help evolve the platform without making the central team a bottleneck.
• Evaluate and introduce AI‑assisted engineering capabilities through controlled experiments, measurable outcomes and appropriate security, privacy, intellectual‑property and human‑review safeguards.
• Hire, coach and develop engineers while building an inclusive culture of ownership, learning and continuous improvement.

You'll be great in this role if you have…

• Experience leading the design or evolution of an internal developer platform, developer‑experience capability or reusable engineering platform.
• A strong software engineering background and the ability to provide credible, hands‑on technical leadership.
• Experience treating an internal platform as a product – conducting user discovery, prioritising developer journeys and measuring adoption and outcomes.
• Deep knowledge of automated software delivery, cloud platforms, Infrastructure as Code, testing, observability and operational reliability.
• Experience designing secure, self‑service capabilities that reduce manual hand‑offs while maintaining appropriate organisational controls.
• The ability to influence across Engineering, Product, Security, Architecture, Risk and operational stakeholders.
• Experience growing engineers and creating effective, sustainable engineering teams.
• A pragmatic mindset: you favour incremental delivery, evidence and feedback over large, technology‑led transformation programs.

It would be valuable if you also bring experience in regulated or safety‑critical environments, software‑supply‑chain security, internal developer portals or service catalogues, FinOps, Site Reliability Engineering practices, or the responsible adoption of AI‑assisted engineering tools.

We're committed to looking after you, with some of the best benefits and conditions in the industry – including (but not limited to):

• Discounted flights for you and your loved ones (including $1000 worth of travel credits per year)
• A flexible, hybrid work style. Work from home or the office, adapt your location to suit your style and needs
• Discounts on travel insurance, lounge membership, car hire, accommodation, and experiences worldwide
• Retail, technology, wellness, and lifestyle discounts.
• Free counselling and access to a wellbeing app to support your physical, mental, social, and financial health
• ‘Dress for Your Day’ – enjoy the freedom to wear whatever makes you feel great for the type of work you do and the day you have ahead of you.

When everyone is included, everyone wins…

We're all individuals. And we love that. That's why we encourage applications from Indigenous Australians, people with disability, those from diverse cultural backgrounds, our friends in the LGBTQIA+ community, and anyone else who wants to join our family.

Ready to apply? We're ready to hear from you. Apply now.