Head of Platform

MetLife; Kuala Lumpur; On-site; MYR 450,000 - 750,000; Full time

Job summary

MetLife Japan seeks a Head of Platform in Kuala Lumpur to lead strategy, modernization, reliability, and lifecycle management of core platforms across on-prem and cloud environments.

You will partner with business leaders, product owners, and global teams to drive delivery excellence and AI-enabled platform modernization.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or equivalent.
• Proven experience leading platform strategy and modernization initiatives.
• Strong background in cloud-native architectures and large-scale systems.

Responsibilities

• Develop and own the long-term platform strategy and roadmap.
• Ensure operations comply with regulatory and governance requirements.
• Establish reliability targets and drive improvements in MTTR and availability.
• Lead and develop multidisciplinary engineering teams toward AI-first engineering.

Skills

Java & SQL/NoSQL

Frontend frameworks

AI-powered engineering

Cloud platforms

Enterprise integration

DevSecOps & CI/CD

Observability & AIOps

Leadership & people management

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science / IT

Tools

Oracle API Gateway

ESB platforms

Job description

The Role

The Head of Platform is a senior technology leadership role accountable for the strategy, modernization, reliability, and end-to-end lifecycle management of MetLife Japan's core application and integration platforms. These platforms serve as the foundational technology backbone for the Japan business - MetLife's second-largest global market and enable mission-critical operations, customer servicing, and business growth.

Position: Head of Platform

Job Location: Kuala Lumpur / Malaysia

The Role

The Head of Platform is a senior technology leadership role accountable for the strategy, modernization, reliability, and end-to-end lifecycle management of MetLife Japan's core application and integration platforms. These platforms serve as the foundational technology backbone for the Japan business - MetLife's second-largest global market and enable mission-critical operations, customer servicing, and business growth.

The Head of Platform acts as the primary platform leader for MetLife Japan, working with business leaders, product owners, enterprise architecture, security, and global teams to drive delivery excellence, enhance system availability, and modernize the platform ecosystem in alignment with MetLife's global strategy.

This role leads a multidisciplinary engineering organization responsible for the stability, scalability, security, and technology currency of Japan's shared platforms. The Head of Platform partners closely with business leaders, product owners, enterprise architecture, security, and global teams to drive delivery excellence, enhance system availability, and modernize the platform ecosystem in alignment with MetLife's global strategy.

The role spans both strategic leadership and operational governance, ensuring strong leadership, governance, and operational excellence across multiple mission-critical systems. The candidate will carry decision making and execute multiple strategic platform implementation and enhancement projects in MetLife Japan.

The successful candidate would be one that ensures the availability of platforms to support MetLife Japan business operations, ensuring that all platforms are up to date with a roadmap to modernization to ensure minimal disruption to services rendered by the platform team, and successfully implements new technologies such AI into the platform team's workstream and driving the team to center around AI first engineering practices. This role balances long-term platform strategy and modernization with day-to-day operational accountability for mission-critical platforms.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and own the long-term platform strategy, including roadmap planning, architecture evolution, modernization initiatives, and technology refresh cycles. Platforms in scope include, but are not limited to, enterprise service bus, workflow platforms, common frameworks, and sales and servicing platforms.
• Ensure platform operations comply with Financial Services Agency (FSA) regulations, internal risk frameworks, and Japan data governance requirements.
• Establish and monitor reliability targets (SLOs and SLIs) and drive continuous improvement in MTTR, service health, and operational resilience.
• Lead, coach, develop, and empower team members to achieve business objectives and deliver high-quality platform initiatives, including system upgrades, capability enhancements, increased availability, and the adoption of AIOps capabilities and driving towards an AI first engineering organization.
• Drive reliability engineering practices such as scalability, self-healing, and availability patterns, with the objective of continuously improving system availability and technology currency.
• Own the platform budget, ensuring optimal investment utilization and cost efficiency. Manage vendor partnerships, SLAs, and strategic suppliers to maximize value delivery.

Candidate Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or equivalent.

Technical Competencies

• Deep expertise in Java, SQL/NoSQL technologies and modern front end frameworks with a proven track record of designing, building, and operating enterprise-grade, large-scale, and highly scalable applications across both on-premises and cloud-native environments.
• Leveraged and championed the use of AI, machine learning and AI-assisted engineering tools (GitHub Copilot, coding agents) to improve platform reliability, undertake modernization initiatives, improve observability, developer productivity and software quality.
• Hands-on exposure to cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP), including containerization, orchestration, and cloud-native services.
• Strong hands-on experience with enterprise integration and middleware technologies, including Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) platforms and Oracle API Gateway, supporting high-volume, mission-critical workloads.
• Experience leading cloud migration and platform modernization initiatives, including re-platforming, refactoring, and technology currency uplift for legacy systems.
• Familiarity with DevSecOps practices, CI/CD pipelines, and automated testing frameworks.
• Experience with observability, monitoring, and AIOps capabilities to improve platform reliability and operational efficiency.

Essential Business Experience

• Demonstrated ability to balance technical and operational excellence with people leadership, delivery accountability, and innovation.
• Strong experience partnering with product and business stakeholders to align platform capabilities with customer and business outcomes.
• Growth mindset, with a focus on learning, adaptability, continuous improvement, and knowledge sharing.

Leadership Competencies

• Sets High Standards - Drives a culture of production ownership, resilience, and operational excellence across mission-critical platforms
• Thinks Strategically - Sets direction aligned with company strategy, applying a global perspective to meet local and enterprise needs.
• Motivates and Empowers - Gains commitment through clear communication of vision and empowers teams to deliver results and grow professionally.
• Creates Partnerships - Builds trusted relationships across Japan platform teams, IT business units, and business stakeholders.
• Grows Talent - Proactively develops diverse talent, fosters engagement, and drives high performance across teams.