Sr Director, Developer Experience and Platform Engineering

Ford•Dearborn, MI

10d•Remote

About The Position

In this position... This role requires a leader who brings deep hands-on engineering experience, having personally designed, built, and operated complex systems earlier in their career, and who now applies that experience to platform strategy, architectural decision-making, and technical leadership at enterprise scale. The Senior Director, Developer Experience and Platform Engineering brings technical credibility, architectural judgment, and engineering leadership to ensure Developer Experience is a first-class engineering discipline embedded across the software lifecycle. The role emphasizes hands-on engineering experience, platform ownership, and technical decision-making, while also requiring strong leadership, collaboration, and strategic alignment across the organization. What you'll do... Engineering, Platform & Code Ownership Own the technical vision, architecture, and roadmap for Developer Experience platforms, including: Developer portals and internal platform products CI/CD pipelines and code delivery systems Container-based developer and runtime environments, including orchestration and lifecycle management API platforms, service templates, and established “golden paths” Observability, reliability, and operational tooling Lead DevX platforms as products, with: Clear ownership and accountability Roadmaps informed by real developer needs Defined reliability, security, and service expectations Act as a hands-on technical leader: Review architecture, designs, and system patterns Apply practical engineering judgment to platform and tooling decisions Make informed trade-offs across scalability, security, reliability, and usability Programming Languages, Core Repositories & Code Delivery: Provide deep technical leadership across polyglot engineering environments, spanning modern backend, frontend, mobile, data, and distributed systems technologies Apply strong understanding of multiple programming paradigms (object-oriented, functional, reactive, event-driven) to ensure DevX initiatives align with how engineers actually write and maintain code Be accountable for core repository strategy and health, including: Code organization and modularization Dependency, version, and release management Shared libraries, frameworks, and reuse patterns Secure, compliant contribution and governance models Influence and standardize code delivery practices across the organization, enabling: Consistent, automated, and high-quality build and release workflows Predictable delivery across both legacy and modern codebases Clear ownership and lifecycle management of shared repositories Strategy Grounded in Engineering Reality Define and own a multi-year Developer Experience strategy aligned with: Automotive and industrial software delivery constraints Safety, security, and regulatory requirements Operating at scale across global regions, time zones, and organizational boundaries A broad and evolving technology landscape, spanning legacy systems through modern and emerging (“bleeding-edge”) platforms Translate strategy into concrete engineering roadmaps and platform designs that can be executed incrementally and sustainably Ensure DevX initiatives reflect real developer workflows, operational constraints, and production realities Balance standardization and autonomy through well-designed paved paths that support consistency while enabling innovation Metrics, Measurement & Continuous Improvement Define, own, and continuously evolve Developer Experience KPIs that measure productivity, reliability, code quality, delivery performance, and developer sentiment Establish a DevX measurement framework that combines: Quantitative engineering metrics (e.g., lead time, deployment frequency, change failure rate, recovery time) Platform usage, adoption, and reliability signals Regular developer surveys and qualitative feedback mechanisms to identify friction and unmet needs Use DevX KPIs and survey insights to: Inform platform, tooling, and investment decisions Identify systemic bottlenecks across the software lifecycle Measure the effectiveness and impact of DevX initiatives over time Ensure metrics are used for continuous improvement, not individual performance management Provide clear executive-level visibility into Developer Experience health and trends AI-Enabled Engineering & Code Quality Lead the responsible application of AI across the software development lifecycle, integrating AI-assisted capabilities such as: Code authoring, refactoring, and modernization assistance Automated code review and static analysis augmentation Test generation, defect detection, and coverage improvement Developer feedback and productivity tooling Ensure AI-enabled solutions: Improve code quality, maintainability, and developer experience Are integrated into existing developer workflows and CI/CD pipelines Meet enterprise standards for security, compliance, intellectual property protection, and ethical use Cross-Functional Technical & Delivery Leadership Partner closely with: Product, Platform, and PDOs to align DevX platforms and tooling with delivery priorities, roadmaps, and outcomes Cloud Infrastructure and Platform Engineering Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) Cybersecurity and Compliance teams Enterprise Architecture and Product Engineering Work with PDOs to ensure Developer Experience investments: Support predictable delivery and execution at scale Reduce friction across planning, build, test, and release phases Align technical capabilities with business and portfolio priorities Serve as a technical peer and trusted advisor to senior engineering, delivery, and infrastructure leaders Influence architecture, tooling, and delivery direction through technical credibility and delivery experience Operational Excellence & Reliability Integration Embed Developer Experience into: Incident management and postmortems Reliability and SRE practices Secure software supply chain initiatives Change and release management Ensure DevX platforms and tooling are: Secure and resilient by default Observable and operated with production rigor Drive a culture of automation, self-service, and continuous engineering improvement How success is achieved... Applying prior hands-on engineering experience to guide platform strategy and architectural decisions Maintaining strong technical fluency across languages, tooling, and system design Building developer platforms and workflows engineers trust and adopt Using data, KPIs, and developer feedback to guide continuous improvement Partnering effectively across engineering, PDOs, cloud, reliability, and security organizations

Requirements

15+ years of experience in software engineering, including:
Significant hands-on development, system design, and production operations experience
Direct involvement in building and operating complex, distributed systems
Demonstrated ability to apply prior engineering experience to platform architecture, code delivery, and technical strategy
Deep expertise in: Google Cloud Platform (GCP), including production operations at scale
Container-based platforms and orchestration technologies
CI/CD systems, developer tooling, and code delivery pipelines
Polyglot software architectures and modern application frameworks
Observability, reliability, and SRE practices
Strong working knowledge of: Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Multi-cloud and hybrid architecture trade-offs
Solid understanding of: Secure software supply chains
Compliance and regulatory requirements common in automotive environments
An engineering-first leader who has grown from hands-on engineer to senior technical leader
Leads through technical depth, architectural judgment, and delivery experience
Comfortable operating at: Executive-level strategy discussions
Deep technical and architectural detail
Experienced in leading platform or infrastructure engineering organizations building real, production systems

Responsibilities

Own the technical vision, architecture, and roadmap for Developer Experience platforms
Lead DevX platforms as products
Act as a hands-on technical leader
Provide deep technical leadership across polyglot engineering environments
Be accountable for core repository strategy and health
Influence and standardize code delivery practices across the organization
Define and own a multi-year Developer Experience strategy
Translate strategy into concrete engineering roadmaps and platform designs that can be executed incrementally and sustainably
Ensure DevX initiatives reflect real developer workflows, operational constraints, and production realities
Balance standardization and autonomy through well-designed paved paths that support consistency while enabling innovation
Define, own, and continuously evolve Developer Experience KPIs that measure productivity, reliability, code quality, delivery performance, and developer sentiment
Establish a DevX measurement framework
Use DevX KPIs and survey insights to inform platform, tooling, and investment decisions
Lead the responsible application of AI across the software development lifecycle
Partner closely with Product, Platform, and PDOs to align DevX platforms and tooling with delivery priorities, roadmaps, and outcomes
Work with PDOs to ensure Developer Experience investments support predictable delivery and execution at scale
Serve as a technical peer and trusted advisor to senior engineering, delivery, and infrastructure leaders
Embed Developer Experience into incident management and postmortems
Drive a culture of automation, self-service, and continuous engineering improvement

Benefits

Immediate medical, dental, vision and prescription drug coverage
Flexible family care days, paid parental leave, new parent ramp-up programs, subsidized back-up childcare and more
Family building benefits including adoption and surrogacy expense reimbursement, fertility treatments, and more
Vehicle discount program for employees and family members and management leases
Tuition assistance
Established and active employee resource groups
Paid time off for individual and team community service
A generous schedule of paid holidays, including the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day
Paid time off and the option to purchase additional vacation time.

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