Platform Engineering Manager

THE EMPIRE LIFE INS. CO • Kingston, ON

1d • CA$151,200 - CA$196,000 • Remote

About The Position

Empire Life is looking to hire a Platform Engineering Manager to join our team! We are actively seeking candidates to fill a current, open position. Reporting the Director, IT Cloud Transformations and Infrastructure the Platform Engineering Manager will help to spearhead the strategic development and evolution of our internal development platform (IDP). This pivotal role will establish and champion Platform Engineering principles, treating our developers as customers and empowering them with self-service capabilities to significantly enhance their productivity and the overall delivery velocity of our software products. The position demands a person who understands that the platform is a product, with its success measured by user adoption and satisfaction, enabling developers to focus on core business logic by reducing their cognitive load. You will lead a cross functional team, driving the architectural design, implementation, and continuous improvement of a robust, scalable, and secure platform across multi-cloud environments, specifically Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform (GCP).

Requirements

• University degree/college diploma in related discipline(s)
• 5+ years of progressive experience in software engineering, DevOps, or Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) roles, with at least 2-3 years specifically in a Platform Engineer capacity.
• Deep hands-on expertise with major public cloud providers, specifically Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform (GCP), including their core compute, storage, networking, and serverless services.
• Expert-level proficiency in Kubernetes (K8s) and containerization technologies (e.g., Docker, Podman, Helm). Extensive experience with managing and optimizing Kubernetes clusters in production environments.
• Extensive experience designing, implementing, and optimizing end-to-end CI/CD pipelines. Mastery of GitOps principles and hands-on experience with ArgoCD for declarative Kubernetes deployments, including automated synchronization, rollback, and drift detection.
• Strong proficiency with IaC tools, particularly Terraform, for managing cloud and Kubernetes infrastructure. A deep understanding of the "everything-as-code" philosophy is foundational for consistent and auditable deployments.
• Proven experience implementing comprehensive monitoring, logging, and tracing solutions. Hands-on experience with monitoring tools such as DataDog and a deep understanding of OpenTelemetry (oTel) for vendor-neutral telemetry collection, processing, and analysis.
• Strong proficiency in at least one modern programming language (e.g., Python, Go, Bash) for automation, tooling development, and API integration.
• Solid understanding of the broader Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) landscape, microservices architectures, and distributed systems.
• Strong understanding of cloud security best practices, including Identity and Access Management (IAM), encryption, secret management, and embedding security controls into CI/CD pipelines (DevSecOps).
• Exceptional communication (written and verbal), and presentation skills, with the ability to influence and collaborate effectively across all levels of the organization and with diverse stakeholders.
• Strong Leadership skills
• Demonstrated ability to drive change, foster a culture of continuous improvement, and make data-driven decisions, balancing short-term needs with long-term strategic vision.
• Strong problem-solving abilities, strategic thinking, and a proactive, solution-oriented approach to complex technical challenges.
• A strong product mindset with a relentless focus on understanding developer needs and continuously improving Developer Experience (DX).

Responsibilities

• Lead the definition, architecture, and evolution of our internal development platform (IDP) from inception to continuous improvement, ensuring it aligns with organizational strategy and adheres to stringent security best practices. This involves a proactive approach to building a service that enables developers, rather than merely managing infrastructure.
• Build, lead, and mentor a high-performing cross-functional team, fostering a culture of technical excellence, collaboration, and continuous learning. This includes providing technical guidance, and driving process improvements to optimize team efficiency and output.
• Champion the adoption of core Platform Engineering principles, including self-service enablement, abstraction of complexity, and a product-centric approach to internal tooling, with a relentless focus on enhancing Developer Experience (DX). This means guiding developers "into the pit of success" by making the most efficient and compliant path the easiest to follow.
• Promote, maintain and enhance, automated Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) pipelines. Implement and enforce GitOps practices using ArgoCD as the declarative continuous deployment tool for Kubernetes, ensuring Git remains the single source of truth for all configurations and enabling automated synchronization and drift detection.
• Lead the adoption, management and optimization of containerization technologies, demonstrating deep expertise in Kubernetes for deploying and managing cloud-native applications, including the implementation of advanced orchestration patterns. This ensures applications are scalable, resilient, and portable across environments.
• Collaborate with the SRE team to promote, maintain, and manage advanced monitoring, logging, and tracing solutions. This involves strategically adopting OpenTelemetry (oTel) for vendor-neutral, end-to-end telemetry collection and analysis, providing deep insights into platform and application performance.
• Collaborate with Security teams to embed security best practices, governance, and compliance into all aspects of platform design, development, and operations (DevSecOps). This includes ensuring "golden paths" guide developers towards secure and compliant solutions, secure access management, and robust secret storage mechanisms.
• Partner closely with product, architecture, security, and development teams to gather requirements, align on roadmaps, and ensure the platform effectively meets the evolving needs of the organization, fostering a cohesive and collaborative engineering environment.
• Drive initiatives for platform performance tuning, cost optimization, and scalability, ensuring efficient resource utilization and continuous improvement of platform efficiency across all environments.

Benefits

• Competitive salaries with annual pay increases
• Annual bonus program, which recognizes both strong company performance and individual contributions, for non sales positions
• A comprehensive employer-funded benefits package starting from day one of employment, that includes life insurance, disability, health and dental and a generous health account
• Flexible work arrangements and an annual allotment of personal health days.
• Four weeks annual vacation from hire date
• A defined contribution pension plan with generous employer matching
• Top up programs for parental leave and compassionate leave
• Employer-sponsored wellness and recognition programs
• A cash employee referral program

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Manager
• Education Level: Associate degree