Platform Engineering Manager

Title: Platform Engineering Manager

Location: Portland, OR / Hybrid

Reports to: CIO / CTO

Organization: Technology

Role Overview

The Platform Manager is a senior technical leadership role responsible for the reliability, architecture, and operational integrity of CLI’s production platforms, working in close partnership with Development and Product Management.

This role owns the systems, standards, and DevOps operating model that enable product teams to deliver software safely, reliably, and at speed. The Platform Manager ensures that CLI’s platforms operate as cohesive, observable systems—while embedding reliability, automation, and operational ownership directly into the development lifecycle.

This is not a traditional IT operations role. It is a platform and DevOps leadership role, focused on enabling teams rather than owning delivery silos.

Core Responsibilities

Platform Reliability & DevOps Practices

• Own reliability of CLI production systems, including availability, performance, resilience, and recoverability


• Establish and mature DevOps and reliability practices that integrate development and operations responsibilities


• Ensure reliability, observability, and incident response are designed into systems, not layered on after delivery


• Lead major incident response and post‑incident learning, with a focus on systemic improvements rather than blame


• Partner with Development to refine on‑call models, deployment practices, and operational ownership

Enterprise Architecture & Technical Standards

• Own CLI’s enterprise architecture across platforms, integrations, and shared services


• Define and maintain architectural principles, reference architectures, and platform standards


• Ensure architecture decisions support continuous delivery, operational safety, and long‑term sustainability


• Serve as final decision authority for cross‑platform architectural tradeoffs

Development Partnership & Platform Enablement

• Work hand‑in‑hand with Development teams to understand delivery challenges and remove friction


• Provide platform capabilities, guardrails, and “paved roads” that enable teams to ship with confidence


• Embed platform thinking into development workflows, CI/CD pipelines, and release processes


• Reduce handoffs and role ambiguity between Development and Operations by clarifying ownership and interfaces


• Champion shared accountability for production health across Platform and Development

Leadership & Organization

• Develop technical leaders and senior engineers, fostering a culture of ownership, learning, and continuous improvement


• Provide leadership across platform‑aligned functions, including Enterprise Architecture, telecom/platform reliability, and technology program coordination


• Act as a connective leader across Development, Product Management, and Corporate IT


• Help shape the future Platform and DevOps operating model as CLI’s systems evolve

Strategy & Continuous Improvement

• Translate business and product strategy into actionable platform and DevOps roadmaps


• Identify systemic risks related to scale, reliability, and architectural complexity


• Establish meaningful metrics for platform health, delivery safety, and operational effectiveness


• Continuously evolve practices, tooling, and standards to support faster, safer delivery

What Success Looks Like

• Development teams deploy changes frequently without sacrificing stability


• Production systems are observable, predictable, and resilient


• Architecture decisions support continuous delivery rather than slowing it


• Reliability issues are addressed at the system level, not repeatedly at the symptom level


• Platform and Development operate as partners with shared accountability for outcomes

Qualifications

Required

• 8–12 years of experience in platform engineering, DevOps, site reliability engineering, systems architecture, or adjacent technical leadership roles


• Demonstrated ownership of production SaaS or cloud systems operating at scale


• Strong grounding in DevOps principles, including CI/CD, automation, observability, and shared operational ownership


• Proven experience partnering closely with development teams throughout the software lifecycle


• Strong communication skills, with the ability to translate technical and operational tradeoffs into business context


• Exposure to telecom (preferably call center)

Preferred

• Experience combining architecture leadership with DevOps and reliability objectives


• Familiarity with SRE concepts and modern operational practices


• Experience evolving organizations from component‑centric or siloed models to platform‑centric, DevOps‑aligned models


• Real‑time platforms, or high‑availability systems is a plus


• Cloud experience in Azure