Head of Site Reliability Engineering & Platform

DeepL; London; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Join DeepL as the Head of Site Reliability Engineering & Platform, where you'll lead teams to enhance reliability and scalability in our operations. Your role will involve strategic oversight, driving innovative engineering solutions, and fostering a culture of learning and collaboration. Enjoy a hybrid work environment with a competitive benefits package, while making an impactful contribution to our mission of breaking down language barriers.

Benefits

30 days of annual leave

Hybrid work, flexible hours

Monthly full-day hacking sessions

Open communication and regular feedback

Regular in-person team events

Qualifications

• Proven experience in a leadership role managing Platform/SRE/DevOps teams.
• Hands-on engineering background in cloud-based open source solutions.
• Commitment to continuous learning and industry trends.

Responsibilities

• Steering the vision and performance of engineering teams.
• Driving excellence in engineering practices and professional development.
• Overseeing strategic direction and execution of the Platform team.

Skills

Leadership

Problem-solving

Communication

Tools

Kubernetes

Kafka

PostgreSQL

Ceph

Terraform

Job description

Head of Site Reliability Engineering & Platform

Join to apply for the Head of Site Reliability Engineering & Platform role at DeepL

Head of Site Reliability Engineering & Platform

Join to apply for the Head of Site Reliability Engineering & Platform role at DeepL

Meet DeepL

DeepL is a global communications platform powered by Language AI. Since 2017, we’ve been on a mission to break down language barriers. Our human-sounding translations and intelligent writing suggestions are designed with enterprise security in mind. Today, they enable over 100,000 businesses to transform communications, reach new markets, and improve productivity. And, empower millions of individuals worldwide to make sense of the world and express their ideas.

Meet DeepL

DeepL is a global communications platform powered by Language AI. Since 2017, we’ve been on a mission to break down language barriers. Our human-sounding translations and intelligent writing suggestions are designed with enterprise security in mind. Today, they enable over 100,000 businesses to transform communications, reach new markets, and improve productivity. And, empower millions of individuals worldwide to make sense of the world and express their ideas.

Our goal is to become the global leader in Language AI, building products that drive better communication, foster connections, and make a real-life impact. To achieve this, we need talented individuals like you to join our exciting journey. If you're ready to work with a dynamic team and build your career in the fast-moving AI space, DeepL is your next destination.

What Sets Us Apart

What sets us apart is our blend of modern technology, competitive benefits, and an open, welcoming work culture that enables our people to thrive. When we share what it's like to work at DeepL, the reactions are overwhelmingly positive. This may be because of our products that have helped countless people worldwide or our shared mission to improve communication for individuals and businesses, bringing cultures closer together. What we know for sure is this: being part of DeepL means joining a team dedicated to innovation and employee well-being. Discover what our teams have to say about life at DeepL on LinkedIn, Instagram and our Blog.

Meet the team behind this journey

This exciting opportunity is open within our SRE & Platform Unit.

SRE & Platform Unit is responsible for delivering a seamless, Kubernetes-based platform that supports hybrid deployment across self-hosted and cloud environments. Consisting of multiple clusters, this platform powers our production workloads, and parts of our AI research, making it easy for teams to onboard, operate, and scale applications reliably.

The unit is composed of two specialized teams—one focused on Platform Engineering and Kubernetes, and the other on SRE and Cloud Infrastructure. Together, they manage core services from the compute platform over databases and other tools to incident response. Anything from CI to production workloads is run on the platform, while training workloads are just getting onboarded. The teams are supported by a shared Technical Project Manager and experienced Staff Engineers who provide deep technical leadership and they collaborate closely with our Datacenter Unit and specialized research teams.

Your Responsibilities

You will be steering the vision, growth, and performance of both teams—driving excellence in engineering practices, cultivating professional development, and evolving our technology stack to meet the demands of world-class AI. You'll play a key role in shaping the culture, scaling the organization, and ensuring we stay at the forefront of reliability, privacy, automation, and platform innovation.

• Strategic Program & Stakeholder Management Act as the primary engineering counterpart for key stakeholders, providing thought leadership on feasibility, scalability, cost, and delivery timelines of initiatives. Ensure engineering roadmaps are strategically aligned with organizational goals and that product development is guided by sound technical direction and high standards of excellence. Drive cross-functional alignment and ensure work is broken down into achievable, incremental milestones that enable consistent and timely delivery. Focus on outcomes and impact rather than direct implementation, while maintaining a strong grasp of architectural trade-offs and technical risk.
• Organizational and People Leadership Lead and grow a high-performing, cross-functional engineering organization with a focus on professional development, team health, and psychological safety. Mentor engineering managers and senior individual contributors, fostering a culture of continuous learning, accountability, and inclusive collaboration. Champion talent development through structured feedback, development planning, and career progression strategies.
• Platform & Team Oversight Oversee the strategic direction and execution of a Platform team managing core infrastructure components including Kafka, Kubernetes, PostgreSQL, Ceph, the Grafana stack and HAProxy. Partner closely with Leadership to co-own team strategy, quarterly goals, and delivery metrics. Ensure engineering best practices in reliability, scalability, and security are embedded in platform development and operations. Create structures for cross-team collaboration and knowledge sharing to amplify impact.
• Operational and Delivery Excellence Establish standards and drive initiatives to improve platform stability, reduce operational overhead, and enhance system observability. Oversee SLAs and SLOs, track team delivery performance, and co-guide structured incident response and learning processes. Focus on system-level outcomes and technical maturity, driving efforts to identify systemic issues and improve long-term reliability.
• Technical & Strategic Leadership Shape the long-term vision of the platform and reliability engineering space by connecting business needs to scalable technical solutions. While not directly coding, maintain a deep understanding of systems architecture, key dependencies, and risk areas. Represent the engineering perspective in leadership forums and planning processes, ensuring the team’s work contributes meaningfully to broader company goals. Align resources, define success metrics, and champion technical strategy that supports both innovation and stability at scale.
  
  

Qualities we look for

• Proven experience in a leadership role managing Platform/SRE/DevOps teams
• Hands-on engineering background running on-premise or cloud-based open source solutions
• Strong understanding of open source solutions such as Flatcar, Ubuntu, Kubernetes, Kafka, PostgreSQL, Ceph, and Prometheus, Terraform, PagerDuty.
• Strong problem-solving and decision-making abilities
• Ability to work under pressure and manage multiple priorities in a fast-changing scaleup environment
• Commitment to continuous learning and staying updated with industry trends
• Excellent communication skills in English with a strong sense of empathy and a solutions-oriented mindset
  
  

What We Offer

• Diverse and internationally distributed team: joining our team means becoming part of a large, global community with people of more than 90 nationalities. We're more than just colleagues; we're a group of professionals with a shared mission to connect diverse cultures. Our global presence is growing–we've doubled in size nearly every year, with our employees based in the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, the US, and Japan, and we continue to expand our network.
• Open communication, regular feedback: as a language-focused company, we value the importance of clear, honest communication. We value smooth collaboration, direct and actionable feedback, and believe that leading with empathy and growth mindset makes us better together.
• Hybrid work, flexible hours: we offer a hybrid work schedule, with team members coming into the office twice a week. This allows you to engage directly with your team and experience the unique energy of our workspace, while still enjoying the flexibility and comfort of working from home. With flexible working hours and trust in your productivity, we are in sync with your team’s general locations and time zones to foster effective and seamless collaboration.
• Regular in-person team events: we bond over vibrant events that are as unique as our team, from local team and business unit gatherings, to new-joiner onboardings, to company-wide events that bring us all together–literally.
• Monthly full-day hacking sessions: every month, we have Hack Fridays, where you can spend your time diving into a project you're passionate about and get the opportunity to work with other teams–we value your initiatives, impact, and creativity.
• 30 days of annual leave: we value your peace of mind. With 30 days off (excluding public holidays) and access to mental health resources, we make sure you're as strong mentally as you are professionally.
• Competitive benefits: just as our team spans the globe, so does our benefits package. We've crafted it to reflect the diversity of our team and tailored it to align with your unique location, to ensure you feel supported every step of the way.
  
  

If this role and our mission resonate with you, but you're hesitant because you don't check all the boxes, don't let that hold you back. At DeepL, it's all about the value you bring and the growth we can foster together. Go ahead, apply—let's discover your potential together. We can't wait to meet you!

We are an equal opportunity employer

You are welcome at DeepL for who you are—we appreciate authenticity here. Our product is for everyone, and so is our workplace. The more voices we have represented and amplified in our business, the more we will all succeed, contribute, and think forward! So bring us your personal experience, your perspectives, and your background. It’s in our diversity that we will find the power to break down language barriers in the world.

Seniority level

• Seniority level

  Associate

Employment type

• Employment type

  Full-time

Job function

• Job function

  Engineering and Information Technology

• Industries

  Software Development

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