Job description

Are you looking to Optimize your life? Start your exciting path to a rewarding career today! We are Optimum, a leader in the fast-paced world of connectivity, and we're seeking driven and enthusiastic professionals to join our team, empower lives, fuel businesses, and drive innovation. Connectivity is no longer a luxury, but a necessity. A career at Optimum means you'll be enabling progress and enhancing lives by providing reliable, high-speed connectivity solutions that keep the world connected. Our successes, now and in the future, are powered by our amazing product, a commitment to our people and culture, and the connections we make in our communities. If you are resourceful, collaborative, and passionate about delivering consistent excellence, Optimum is for you! Job Summary The Manager, Infrastructure Platform Engineering is responsible for the strategy, engineering, and operational leadership of the internal developer platform that delivers compute, storage, container, and infrastructure services as a product to engineering, network, and IT consumers across the enterprise. This role leads a team of platform engineers and software-oriented infrastructure engineers responsible for building self-service provisioning capabilities, infrastructure-as-code frameworks, container orchestration environments, and the automated workflows that enable internal customers to consume infrastructure rapidly, consistently, and securely. The position serves as the engineering owner of the platform-as-a-product operating model and is accountable for platform reliability, developer experience, adoption, and unit economics. The Manager partners closely with Cloud Engineering, Network Engineering, Security, Application Development, SRE, and product engineering teams to align the platform roadmap with enterprise technology strategy, accelerate software and service delivery, and reduce the operational burden of consuming infrastructure. This role replaces the traditional systems engineering management function with a software-engineering and DevOps leadership profile focused on automation, API-driven service delivery, and product management of internal infrastructure capabilities. The Manager is accountable for team development, vendor and open-source technology selection, financial stewardship of platform investments, and continuous evolution of platform capabilities in support of the company's digital and network transformation objectives. Responsibilities • Lead the strategy, roadmap, and engineering execution for the internal developer platform delivering compute, storage, container, and infrastructure services as a product to internal consumers. • Establish and operate a platform-as-a-product operating model, including platform product management practices, internal customer discovery, service-level objectives, and platform adoption metrics. • Define the platform service catalog that internal teams consume to provision and operate infrastructure. • Lead engineering of infrastructure-as-code frameworks, modules, and pipelines using Terraform, Ansible, and related tooling to automate the provisioning and lifecycle management of compute, storage, network, and platform resources. • Establish coding standards, module ownership models, code review practices, and version control workflows for infrastructure and platform engineering teams. • Build and operate CI/CD pipelines for infrastructure code, including automated testing, policy enforcement, drift detection, and continuous compliance. • Drive the replacement of manual systems administration and ticket-driven provisioning with API-first, code-defined, and event-driven workflows. Container Platforms and Orchestration • Lead engineering, operation, and evolution of Kubernetes and container orchestration platforms supporting internal engineering, network function, and application workloads. • Define and operate cluster lifecycle management, multi-cluster strategy, upgrade processes, capacity management, and platform security baselines. • Support containerization of legacy workloads, cloud-native application enablement, and the operational integration of containerized network functions. • Establish standards for namespaces, ingress, service mesh, secrets management, image supply chain, and admission controls. • Lead the design and delivery of self-service portals, APIs, and developer-facing tooling that allow internal consumers to provision and manage infrastructure without manual intervention. • Define the developer experience strategy for the platform, including documentation, onboarding, golden paths, templates, and feedback mechanisms. • Drive platform adoption through internal customer engagement, capability awareness, training, and continuous improvement based on consumer feedback. • Measure and improve key developer experience metrics including time-to-first-environment, lead time for provisioning, change failure rate, and platform Net Promoter Score. • Reduce cognitive load for internal engineering teams by abstracting infrastructure complexity behind well-defined platform interfaces. • Establish reliability, availability, and performance objectives for platform services, and operate the platform to those service-level objectives. • Lead engineering of observability, monitoring, alerting, and operational dashboards for the developer platform and the infrastructure it manages. • Direct incident response, root cause analysis, and post-incident improvements for platform-impacting events. • Drive automation-first operations, including auto-remediation, runbook-as-code, and the systematic elimination of manual operational work. • Manage capacity planning, upgrade cycles, and lifecycle management of platform components and supporting infrastructure. • Lead, develop, and grow a team of platform engineers, software-oriented infrastructure engineers, and DevOps engineers. Qualifications Education and Experience • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Information Technology, or a related technical field required. • Master's degree in a relevant discipline preferred. • Equivalent combination of education, advanced training, and directly related experience may be considered in lieu of a degree. Expertise • 8+ years of experience in software engineering, platform engineering, DevOps, site reliability engineering, or cloud infrastructure engineering. • 3+ years of people leadership experience managing software, platform, DevOps, or SRE teams. • Demonstrated experience designing, building, and operating internal developer platforms or platform-as-a-product capabilities in a large enterprise or service provider environment. • Hands-on engineering depth in infrastructure-as-code tooling, including Terraform and Ansible, with experience defining standards, modules, and pipelines at scale. • Strong production experience operating Kubernetes and container orchestration platforms, including lifecycle management, multi-cluster operations, and platform hardening. • Experience designing and operating CI/CD pipelines, GitOps workflows, and policy-as-code frameworks. • Proficiency in at least one general-purpose programming language commonly used in platform engineering, such as Go, Python, or Java, and the ability to lead engineering teams that ship code as a primary deliverable. • Strong understanding of API design, event-driven architectures, message buses, and integration patterns used in modern platform engineering. • Experience operating self-service provisioning portals, internal developer platforms, or service catalogs, and measuring developer experience outcomes. • Working knowledge of public cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud, and hybrid cloud operating models. • Experience with observability, monitoring, and SRE practices, including service-level objectives, error budgets, and incident management at scale. • Understanding of platform security practices, including identity and access management, secrets management, image supply chain security, and policy enforcement. • Familiarity with telecommunications, cable/MSO, broadband, wireless, or large-scale service provider environments preferred. • Experience supporting containerized network functions, network function virtualization, or cloud-native network infrastructure preferred. • Relevant certifications in cloud platforms, Kubernetes (CKA, CKAD, CKS), Terraform, or related platform engineering disciplines preferred. At Optimum, every action and interaction we take part in, is driven by our three Guiding Principles: Do What’s Right, Drive One Optimum, and Make It Happen. These aren’t just words, they help us build trust, create real community, and embrace new ways of thinking. Our employees are empowered to do the right thing for our customers and co-workers and to recognize and reward these behaviors when we see them. It’s all part of the bigger picture of “Be The Difference” where each employee knows they have the power to enact real change, share new ideas, and understand that learning never stop. If you have the drive to succeed and are ready to embark on a thrilling career, seize this opportunity today, and join our winning team. Together, we'll shape the future of connectivity. All job descriptions and required skills, qualifications and responsibilities for a particular position are subject to modification by the Company from time to time, in the Company’s discretion based on business necessity. We are an Equal Opportunity Employer committed to recruiting, hiring and promoting qualified people of all backgrounds regardless of gender, race, color, creed, national origin, religion, age, marital status, pregnancy, physical or mental disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, military or veteran status, or any other basis protected by federal, state, or local law. The Company collects personal information about its applicants for employment that may include personal identifiers, professional or employment related information, photos, education information and/or protected classifications under federal and state law. This information is collected for employment purposes, including identification, work authorization, FCRA-compliant background screening, human resource administration and compliance with federal, state and local law. Applicants for employment with The Company will never be asked to provide money (even if reimbursable) as part of the job application or hiring process. Please review our Fraud FAQ for further details. Pay is competitive and based on a number of job-related factors, including skills and experience. The starting pay rate/range at time of hire for this position in the posted location is $133,661.00 - $219,586.00 / year. The rate/range provided herein is the anticipated pay at the time of hire and does not reflect future job opportunity. We appreciate your interest in this opportunity. Applicants must be authorized to work for ANY employer in the U.S. Please note that at this time, we do not provide visa sponsorship for employment.

Requirements

Must-haves

Are you looking to Optimize your life? Start your exciting path to a rewarding career today!
If you are resourceful, collaborative, and passionate about delivering consistent excellence, Optimum is for you!
Lead the strategy, roadmap, and engineering execution for the internal developer platform delivering compute, storage, container, and infrastructure services as a product to internal consumers.
Establish and operate a platform-as-a-product operating model, including platform product management practices, internal customer discovery, service-level objectives, and platform adoption metrics.
Define the platform service catalog that internal teams consume to provision and operate infrastructure.
Establish coding standards, module ownership models, code review practices, and version control workflows for infrastructure and platform engineering teams.
Build and operate CI/CD pipelines for infrastructure code, including automated testing, policy enforcement, drift detection, and continuous compliance.
Drive the replacement of manual systems administration and ticket-driven provisioning with API-first, code-defined, and event-driven workflows.
Container Platforms and Orchestration
Lead engineering, operation, and evolution of Kubernetes and container orchestration platforms supporting internal engineering, network function, and application workloads.
Define and operate cluster lifecycle management, multi-cluster strategy, upgrade processes, capacity management, and platform security baselines.
Support containerization of legacy workloads, cloud-native application enablement, and the operational integration of containerized network functions.
Establish standards for namespaces, ingress, service mesh, secrets management, image supply chain, and admission controls.
Lead the design and delivery of self-service portals, APIs, and developer-facing tooling that allow internal consumers to provision and manage infrastructure without manual intervention.
Define the developer experience strategy for the platform, including documentation, onboarding, golden paths, templates, and feedback mechanisms.
Drive platform adoption through internal customer engagement, capability awareness, training, and continuous improvement based on consumer feedback.
Measure and improve key developer experience metrics including time-to-first-environment, lead time for provisioning, change failure rate, and platform Net Promoter Score.
Reduce cognitive load for internal engineering teams by abstracting infrastructure complexity behind well-defined platform interfaces.
Establish reliability, availability, and performance objectives for platform services, and operate the platform to those service-level objectives.
Lead engineering of observability, monitoring, alerting, and operational dashboards for the developer platform and the infrastructure it manages.

Nice-to-haves

Master's degree in a relevant discipline preferred.
Familiarity with telecommunications, cable/MSO, broadband, wireless, or large-scale service provider environments preferred.
Experience supporting containerized network functions, network function virtualization, or cloud-native network infrastructure preferred.
Relevant certifications in cloud platforms, Kubernetes (CKA, CKAD, CKS), Terraform, or related platform engineering disciplines preferred.

Application prep

Use the role’s language and application details while tailoring your materials.

Keywords to mirror

apici/cdkubernetesgopythonjavaawsazure

Platform: successfactors
Effort: medium

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