Director of Platform Engineering (Remote in Spain possible)

Do you have a passion for Platform Engineering? Do you get your kick from enabling teams to efficiently deliver complex distributed systems in a secure, observable and cost-efficient way?
Yes? You should definitely read on!

The role you’ll play

As Director of Platform Engineering, you will be responsible for a team of SREs and focus on several areas.

The first part of your role is technical leadership. As a technical leader, you will define our Platform Engineering vision to ensure that we have an observable, scalable, secure platform to run all our products and services.

Your second focus area is team leadership. As team leader, you will set the goals for your team members and help them achieve their goals. You will support your engineers to solve difficult issues and assist them in growing their skills. You will need to balance the team focus between strategic developments & evangelization and support the rest of our engineering teams.

Finally, you will focus on collaboration at multiple levels. We have a large tech ecosystem, and our Platform Engineering team is the foundation of our entire engineering setup. So, smooth collaboration with the rest of the tech teams is essential. You will team up with our Senior Director of Technology and collaborate with all other tech directors to ensure that we have a unified vision, and everyone is onboard with it.

The team you’ll be a part of

We have 4 software teams working in 5 countries taking care of the continuous development of our platform. We strongly believe in building our own tech so we can deliver the best solutions for our customers. Our teams cover the full technical scope needed to create advanced language solutions with AI, complex web-based tools, workflow engines, large scale data stores and much more. Our technology and linguistic data assets set us apart from the competition and we’re proud of that.

You will work closely with the other 5 tech directors and report to our Senior Director of Technology.

If you want to make a difference, make it with us by…

1. Leading a tribe of 6-8 SREs
2. Building a culture of trust, ownership and innovation.
3. Being a trusted mentor to your team and helping your colleagues to grow professionally.
4. Guiding the planning of the team in a data-driven way using the Objectives and Key Results (OKR) framework.
5. Pushing our engineering excellence forward across the entire organization
6. Providing strategic direction & vision in the form of a platform engineering roadmap to ensure scalability, resilience, security, capacity, and operational maintenance.
7. Working closely with our Technical Enablement team (architecture, data, security and performance) to ensure alignment.
8. Driving the strategy execution across the entire tech organization by closely collaborating with other tech directors and teams.
9. Supporting engineering teams so they are empowered to operate their own products and services. We follow the “you build it, you run it” paradigm.
10. Ensuring optional operations of our products and services
11. Ensuring that our common infrastructure and services work flawlessly
12. Ensuring great observability across the entire ecosystem
13. Keeping our costs under control by applying FinOps practices.

In one year, you’ll know you were successful if…

1. We have consolidated our common infrastructure, our CI/CD pipelines & our observability stack across the entire organization.
2. Engineering teams are fully autonomous and consistently adapt your internal products.
3. Your team regards you as a trusted expert and mentor in the Platform Engineering domain
4. You have helped the team grow – both in numbers and in capabilities

Desired experience and competencies

What does it take to work for LanguageWire?

What you’ll need to bring

1. You are a hands-on technical expert on Platform Engineering
2. Public cloud (we use Azure & GCP).
3. Cloud networking & distributed networking (servicemesh etc)
4. Infrastructure as Code (Terraform).
5. CI/CD pipelines (Azure DevOps).
6. Modern software development processes (Trunk-based development, shift-left testing, CI/CD, …).
7. Observability (OpenTelemetry, Grafana, Elastic, …).
8. FinOps & cost optimization.

· You are a leader

1. Proven experience with leading, motivating and engaging an international, distributed team of smart engineers.
2. You stand out as a trusted leader and respected mentor in your team.
3. Excellent communication and problem-solving skills.
4. Strong experience attracting and retaining top talent.

· You are a team player

1. You love solving complex puzzles with engineers from different areas and different backgrounds
2. You’re eager to understand how the different areas of the ecosystem connect to create the complete value chain

· Excellent presentation and data visualization skills. You’re comfortable reporting and presenting to the executive leadership.

·Fluent English (reading, writing, speaking)

This will make you stand out

1. Knowledge about cybersecurity (SCA, SAST, container scanning, OPA, …)
2. Knowledge about identity management (Active Directory, OIDC, SAML, Keycloak, …)

Our perks

1. Enjoy flat hierarchies, responsibility and freedom, direct feedback, and room to stand up for your own ideas
2. Internal development opportunities, ongoing support from your People Partner, and an inclusive and fun company culture
3. International company with over 400 employees. Offices in Copenhagen, Aarhus, Stockholm, Varberg, London, Leuven, Lille, Paris, Munich, Hamburg, Zurich, Kiev, Gdansk, Atlanta, Finland and Valencia
4. We offer flexible work options tailored to how you work best. Depending on your team, you may have the option to work full-time from the office as an "Office Bee," part-time from the office as a "Nomad," or full-time from home as a "Homey."
5. We take care of our people and initiate many social get-togethers from Friday Bars a to Summer or Christmas parties. We have fun!
6. 200 great colleagues in the Valencia office belonging to different business departments
7. Excellent location in cool and modern offices in the city center, with a great rooftop terrace and a view over the Town Hall Square
8. Private health insurance
9. Working in an international environment—more than 20 different nationalities
10. A dog friendly atmosphere
11. Big kitchen with access to organic fruits, nuts and biscuits and coffee.
12. Social area and game room (foosball table, darts, and board games)
13. Bike and car parking

About LanguageWire

At LanguageWire, we want to wire the world together with language. Why? Because we want to help people & businesses simplify communication. We are fueled by the most advanced technology (AI) and our goal is to make customer's lives easier by simplifying their communication with any audience across the globe.

Our values drive our behavior

We are curious. We are trustworthy. We are caring. We are ambitious.

At LanguageWire, we are curious and intrigued by what we don’t understand. We believe relationships are based on honesty and responsibility, and being trustworthy reinforces an open, humble, and honest way of communicating. We are caring and respect each other personally and professionally. We encourage authentic collaboration, invite feedback and a positive social environment. Our desire to learn, build, and share knowledge is a natural part of our corporate culture.

Working at LanguageWire — why we like it:

“We believe that we can wire the world together with language. It drives us to think big, follow ambitious goals, and get better every day. By embracing and solving the most exciting and impactful challenges, we help people to understand each other better and to bring the world closer together.”

(Waldemar, Senior Director of Product Management, Munich)

“Once the purpose & values project had been rolled out, I felt a stronger connection and more engaged. Within our team, we care for each other, help each other on tasks, projects and we value different opinions. We truly lift each other up to be our best and ambitiously strive towards constantly improving on a professional and personal level.“

(Patrick, Application Support Team Lead, Valencia)

Yes, to diversity, equity & inclusion

In LanguageWire, we believe diversity in gender, age, background, and culture is essential for our growth. Therefore, we are committed to creating a culture that incorporates diverse perspectives and expertise in our everyday work.

LanguageWire’s recruitment process is designed to be transparent and fair for all candidates. We encourage candidates of all backgrounds to apply, and we ensure that candidates are provided with an equal opportunity to demonstrate their competencies and skills.

Want to know more?

We can’t wait to meet you! So, why wait 'til tomorrow? Apply today!

If you want to know more about LanguageWire, we encourage you to visit our website!