Managing Director, Head of Software & Platform Engineering

Madison-Davis; United States; Remote; USD 260,000 - 370,000; Full time

Job summary

Madison-Davis, LLC is seeking an accomplished engineering executive to lead Software Engineering and Platform Engineering, reporting to the CTO, overseeing production applications, platforms, infrastructure, and reliability capabilities.

The role requires deep technical credibility and experience guiding architecture, delivering scalable platforms, and strengthening internal developer tooling to support a product-oriented engineering culture.

Qualifications

• Senior engineering leadership with accountability for production app development.
• Platform engineering ownership with strong Kubernetes and cloud-native experience.
• Proven track record managing sizable engineering organizations.
• Strong Python development background and code-level credibility.
• Deep understanding of distributed systems and production software design.
• Practical SRE, observability, and reliability engineering experience.
• Strong IaC, automation, and CI/CD knowledge.
• Experience improving engineering processes, release quality, and developer productivity.
• Excellent technical leadership and executive communication skills.

Responsibilities

• Oversee teams for application development, software architecture, production releases and delivery.
• Lead platform engineering, SRE, cloud infrastructure, and observability functions.
• Establish architectural standards across distributed apps, Kubernetes and cloud-native infra.
• Develop internal developer platforms and automation to improve productivity and deployment efficiency.
• Drive improvements in CI/CD, IaC, release quality, and production reliability.
• Participate in technical decisions and production code reviews, especially in Python environments.
• Hire, coach, and scale engineering managers and senior technical leaders.
• Collaborate with executives and product stakeholders to align priorities with delivery objectives.

Skills

Senior leadership

Platform engineering

Kubernetes

Cloud-native

Python development

Distributed systems

SRE & observability

CI/CD & IaC

Engineering leadership & exec comms

Tools

Kubernetes

Job description

A technology-driven enterprise software organization is seeking an accomplished engineering executive to lead its Software Engineering and Platform Engineering functions. Reporting directly to the CTO, this leader will oversee the teams responsible for developing, delivering, and operating production applications, alongside the engineering platforms, infrastructure, and reliability capabilities that support those systems. The position requires an experienced organizational leader with deep technical credibility. The successful individual will guide software architecture, improve engineering delivery, strengthen internal developer platforms, and help scale a product-oriented engineering culture. This is a broad technology leadership position requiring both application development ownership and modern platform engineering expertise.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Oversee teams responsible for application development, software architecture, production releases, and ongoing engineering delivery.
• Lead platform engineering, SRE, cloud infrastructure, and observability functions.
• Establish architectural standards across distributed applications, Kubernetes, and cloud-native infrastructure.
• Develop internal developer platforms and engineering automation to improve productivity and deployment efficiency.
• Drive improvements in CI/CD, Infrastructure-as-Code, release quality, and production reliability.
• Participate in important technical decisions and production code reviews, particularly within Python environments.
• Hire, coach, and scale engineering managers and senior technical leaders.
• Collaborate with executive and product stakeholders to align technical priorities with software delivery objectives.

Role Requirements

• Senior software engineering leadership experience with direct accountability for production application development.
• Demonstrated platform engineering ownership with strong Kubernetes and cloud-native experience.
• Proven success managing sizable engineering organizations.
• Strong Python development background and current code-level technical credibility.
• Deep understanding of distributed-system architecture and production software design.
• Practical SRE, observability, and reliability engineering experience.
• Strong Infrastructure-as-Code, engineering automation, and CI/CD knowledge.
• Experience improving engineering processes, software release quality, and developer productivity.
• Strong technical leadership, organizational development, and executive communication skills.

PREFERRED EXPERIENCE

• Experience adopting AI-assisted software development or agentic engineering tools.
• OpenStack, VMware, or hybrid/private-cloud modernization.
• Exposure to Go, Rust, Java, or Node.Js.
• Experience with policy-as-code and developer-experience programs.
• Background scaling engineering teams through significant organizational growth.