Global Head of Platforms

watchTowr; Manchester; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

A global cybersecurity leader based in the UK is seeking a Global Head of Platforms to lead the Platform Engineering team. The ideal candidate will have over 10 years of experience in distributed systems, cloud infrastructure, and cybersecurity platforms. This pivotal role involves enhancing global scanning infrastructure and driving DevOps practices. Join a fast-growing company committed to protecting enterprises with cutting-edge technology. Competitive compensation and endless growth opportunities are offered.

Benefits

Competitive compensation

Career progression opportunities

Access to advanced tools

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in managing distributed engineering teams.
• Proven experience as a global leader managing local teams.
• Experience with cybersecurity platforms at scale.

Responsibilities

• Lead and grow the Platform Engineering organisation.
• Architect and optimise the global scanning and processing platform.
• Ensure alignment with global cloud infrastructure standards.

Skills

Distributed systems

Networking

Cloud infrastructure

DevOps practices

Agile methodologies

Tools

AWS

Azure

Terraform

Kubernetes

Docker

Job description

Overview

Hello, let us introduce ourselves! watchTowr is the Preemptive Exposure Management capability trusted by Fortune 500 companies and critical infrastructure providers.

By combining proactive threat intelligence, real attacker telemetry, and automated red teaming, watchTowr continuously identifies and validates real exposure - so security teams can outrun real-world threats.

When exploitation happens in hours, watchTowr delivers what no one else can : time to respond.

We are a global team of operators, researchers, and engineers who have spent years thinking like attackers - and we are now building the technology to stop them. Our work is recognised across the industry, with original vulnerability research from watchTowr Labs and innovations like Instinct and Attacker Eye shaping the future of cybersecurity.

Backed by $29M in funding, recognised by Gartner, and scaling fast across the globe, we are in a high-growth phase of our journey. We are a young, high-energy, and research-driven team, obsessed with building world-class technology - and we want exceptional people to join us.

Role

But what’s the role?

We are looking for a Global Head of Platforms (DevOps) to lead and scale our Platform Engineering organisation as we continue our mission of helping organisations understand how they could be compromised – in real time. This is a pivotal role responsible for evolving and operating our global cloud and distributed scanning infrastructure so we can reliably serve customers at global scale.

The ideal candidate combines deep expertise in distributed systems, networking, and cloud infrastructure with a proven track record of leading high-performance engineering teams across multiple regions. The role is based in the UK.

Responsibilities

• Lead and grow the global Platform Engineering organisation , driving organisational design, hiring, capability development, and succession planning.
• Architect, scale, and optimise our global distributed scanning and data processing platform , ensuring high throughput, resiliency, and low-latency operation across regions.
• Elevate DevOps and delivery performance , continuously improving deployment frequency, change lead time, failure rates, and time to recovery across services.
• Ensure global cloud and infrastructure alignment , balancing regional regulatory requirements, data residency and sovereignty, operational risk, and cost optimisation.
• Partner closely with Product, Security, and Application Engineering to deliver platform capabilities that enable secure, reliable, and scalable product delivery.
• Define and evolve our platform architecture , including networking, workflow pipelines, observability, storage, and multi-cloud / hybrid-cloud strategies.
• Champion engineering best practices , including infrastructure-as-code, automated testing, secure-by-default design, and high-quality operational documentation.
• Drive a culture of continuous improvement , enabling faster delivery, strong operational maturity, and a focus on reliability and service availability.

Ideal Experience

• 10+ years experience building and managing distributed engineering teams across multiple regions global
• Proven experience as a global leader managing local leads (not just individual engineers).
• Track record of developing high-performing teams through hiring, structured performance reviews, mentoring, and career frameworks.
• Experience with cybersecurity platforms or security data at scale (ideally Threat Intelligence and / or Offensive Security-type solutions).
• Proven experience building engineering organisations in early-stage, B2B startups serving enterprise clients.
• Demonstrated track record scaling high-throughput and distributed systems in production.
• Technical depth across :
  Cloud service providers : AWS, Azure
  Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) : Terraform, Ansible
  Platforms : Kubernetes (AWS EKS), AWS ECS, Docker Compose, Lambda, Airflow
  Observability : Elastic-Fluent-Kibana (EFK) stack, Prometheus, Jaegar / OpenTelemetry, Grafana
  Persistence layers : MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis, Elasticsearch, Kafka
  Delivery pipelines : GitHub Actions, AWS CodeBuild
• Software runtimes : Python, Node.js, Golang
• Experience working with business stakeholders at various levels to facilitate infrastructure analysis and business needs, costs projections and economy of scale.
• Strong understanding of networking and OSI Layer 3+ protocols and performance optimisation in distributed environments.
• Experience working with cross-functional teams delivering software using Agile methodologies.
• Experience operating cloud infrastructure at a global or multi-region level, including cost, risk, and resilience considerations.
• Familiarity with navigating regulatory, privacy, and data sovereignty requirements in the US, UK, and EU.
• Strong knowledge of DevOps and SRE practices, CI / CD pipelines, observability, and infrastructure reliability patterns.

What’s in it for me?

• Competitive compensation - we believe that hard work, skills and ambition should be fairly compensated.
• Meaningful role in a company - You will be a key and early contributor to a fast-growing cybersecurity business that helps protect some of the world's largest enterprises.
• The best tools and powerful kit - we enable you with the tools to effectively fulfil your role.
• Endless opportunities – we are in a high-growth phase of our journey, and plan to promote from within as we scale.
• Work with cyber security experts – we are solving cutting-edge industry-wide cyber security challenges with some of the world’s most advanced organisations.

Equal Opportunity Employer

watchTowr is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer

At watchTowr, we’re dedicated to fostering an inclusive, respectful, and diverse environment where every individual is recognised for their talent and potential. Our hiring decisions are guided by your capabilities, experience, and what you bring to the role - not by unrelated personal attributes.

We have a zero-tolerance approach to any form of discrimination or harassment. This includes - but isn’t limited to - discrimination based on race, ethnicity, religion, colour, nationality, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, disability, pregnancy or parental status, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.

We actively encourage people from all backgrounds to apply. Even if you don’t tick every box in the job description, we’d still love to hear from you.