Director, Platform Engineering

Ffive; Reston (VA); On-site; USD 197,000 - 296,000; Full time

Job summary

F5 is seeking an experienced Director of Platform Engineering to lead the architecture, operations, and modernization of compute capacity across our Substrate Engineering organization. You will steer a modernization roadmap, move toward an automation-first, self-service delivery model, and ensure FedRAMP readiness in a private/hybrid cloud context.

The role requires balancing hands-on guidance with strategic leadership, cultivating a kind, inclusive engineering culture, and driving reliability,

Qualifications

• 12+ years in infrastructure, DevOps, or platform engineering.
• 7+ years in engineering leadership of technical teams.
• Experience modernizing legacy processes with automation.

Responsibilities

• Assess current operations and design a phased modernization plan.
• Lead platform and DevOps teams fostering a kind, inclusive culture.
• Oversee private cloud infrastructure, Proxmox, and Kubernetes environments.
• Champion Terraform, Ansible, and CI/CD pipelines for automation.
• Align FedRAMP readiness with Security, Compliance, and Architecture.

Skills

Platform leadership

Automation mindset

Kubernetes expertise

Executive communication

Incident leadership

Tools

Proxmox

KVM

VMware

Terraform

Ansible

GitLab CI

GitHub Actions

Jenkins

Job description

At F5, we strive to bring a better digital world to life. Our teams empower organizations across the globe to create, secure, and run applications that enhance how we experience our evolving digital world. We are passionate about cybersecurity, from protecting consumers from fraud to enabling companies to focus on innovation.

Everything we do centers around people. That means we obsess over how to make the lives of our customers, and their customers, better. And it means we prioritize a diverse F5 community where each individual can thrive.

About the Role

We are seeking an experienced Director of Platform Engineering to lead the architecture, operations, and modernization of compute capacity across our Substrate Engineering organization.

In this role, you will evaluate our current operational landscape, establish a strategic modernization roadmap, and reorganize how the Platform team operates-shifting toward an automation-first, self-service delivery model that reduces operational toil. You will balance hands-on technical guidance with strategic leadership across private and hybrid cloud environments, while actively partnering to support our path toward FedRAMP readiness.

Beyond technical expertise, we place immense value on cultural fit: we are looking for a leader who embodies our core expectation to "be kind"—someone who leads with empathy, communicates transparently, develops talent, and fosters an inclusive, low-friction engineering environment.

Key Responsibilities

• Assess & Modernize Team Operations: Evaluate current workflows, tooling, and team structures to formulate and execute a phased modernization plan, reorganizing the platform team around an automation-first, self-service engineering paradigm.
• Team Leadership & Culture: Lead, mentor, and scale a high-performing team of platform and DevOps engineers, cultivating a collaborative culture of continuous learning, psychological safety, and accountability grounded in our core commitment to "be kind."
• Platform Architecture & Virtualization: Oversee the capacity planning, lifecycle, and operational resilience of our private cloud infrastructure, including Proxmox virtualization and foundational Service 0 Kubernetes environments.
• Automation & Delivery Pipelines: Champion Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform), configuration management (Ansible), and robust CI/CD pipelines to ensure consistent, auditable deployments and eliminate manual operational toil.
• FedRAMP & Compliance Alignment: Partner closely with Security, Compliance, and Architecture teams to understand, align with, and operationalize FedRAMP requirements across platform systems (prior certification is not required; interest and capability to champion compliance alignment are essential).
• Operational Reliability & Incident Leadership: Establish and track SLOs, SLAs, and platform KPIs; lead cross-functional incident responses under pressure and drive blameless post-mortems to ensure continuous platform resilience.

Qualifications

Technical & Leadership Experience

• 12 years of progressive experience in infrastructure, DevOps, systems, or platform engineering.
• 7 years of direct engineering leadership experience managing and developing high-performing technical teams.
• Demonstrated track record of evaluating legacy/operational processes and executing successful modernization and automation initiatives.
• Strong architectural and operational experience with private cloud / hybrid infrastructure and virtualization platforms (e.g., Proxmox, KVM, VMware).
• Production expertise with container orchestration ecosystems, specifically Kubernetes.
• Deep proficiency in Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform), configuration management (Ansible or equivalent), and modern CI/CD tooling (GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, Jenkins).
• Fluency with scripting and automation languages (Python, Go, Bash).
• Working familiarity with-or a strong aptitude and willingness to learn-federal compliance frameworks such as FedRAMP, NIST 800-53, or SOC 2.

Leadership & Soft Skills

• Be Kind
• Change Management: Proven ability to navigate ambiguity, align cross-functional teams, and reduce organizational friction during transformation.
• Executive Communication: Exceptional verbal and written communication skills across Product, Architecture, Security, Compliance, and Executive stakeholders.
• Incident Command: Calm, structured problem-solving approach during critical platform events and high-pressure situations.

The Job Description is intended to be a general representation of the responsibilities and requirements of the job. However, the description may not be all-inclusive, and responsibilities and requirements are subject to change.

The annual base pay for this position is: $197,100.00 - $295,700.00

F5 maintains broad salary ranges for its roles in order to account for variations in knowledge, skills, experience, geographic locations, and market conditions, as well as to reflect F5's differing products, industries, and lines of business. The pay ra