Head of Ai Platform Engineering & Public Cloud

ABOUT OUR CLIENT

Our Client is a globally recognized organization operating within a highly complex and technology-driven enterprise environment. With a strong focus on innovation, modernization, and scalable technology solutions, the organization is investing heavily in enterprise AI enablement and cloud platform transformation.

This is an opportunity to build and shape a critical enterprise capability from the ground up while partnering with senior technology and business leaders across the organization.

ABOUT THE ROLE

Our Client is seeking a strategic and technically credible technology leader to serve as Head of AI Platform Engineering & Public Cloud. This role will lead the evolution of the existing Public Cloud Platform team while building a net-new AI Platform Engineering function focused on enabling secure, scalable, and governed AI adoption across the enterprise.

The ideal candidate brings a strong combination of enterprise leadership experience, platform engineering expertise, and AI governance knowledge. This leader will operate across a highly federated environment, influencing stakeholders, establishing operating models, and driving measurable outcomes in areas where structure and governance are still emerging.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Define and execute enterprise strategy for AI platform engineering and multi-cloud environments

Build and scale a new AI Platform Engineering organization

Lead and evolve the existing Public Cloud Platform Engineering team

Establish enterprise AI guardrails, governance frameworks, and architectural standards

Implement governance-by-engineering through policy-as-code and automated controls

Partner closely with Information Security, Infrastructure, Data teams, and business technology stakeholders

Define secure AI usage patterns, identity strategies, and secrets management approaches

Establish model access controls, observability standards, and risk management frameworks

Reduce fragmented and ungoverned AI usage through enterprise-supported tooling and standards

Operate platforms as products with clear roadmaps, adoption metrics, and self-service capabilities

Drive developer experience improvements through automation, APIs, templates, and platform tooling

Enable AI-assisted development workflows and scalable engineering enablement practices

Embed governance and compliance into tooling rather than manual processes

Standardize identity, access management, and audit-ready telemetry practices

Embed FinOps principles into platform capabilities and cloud consumption strategies

Optimize cloud and AI cost-performance tradeoffs across enterprise environments

Build high-performing engineering teams and define scalable operating models across federated organizations

Influence stakeholders and drive outcomes without relying on direct authority

QUALIFICATIONS

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or related field, or equivalent practical experience

10+ years of experience in cloud, platform engineering, or AI environments

5+ years leading engineering or platform teams within enterprise organizations

Proven experience building and scaling platform engineering capabilities

Demonstrated success operating within complex, federated enterprise environments

Strong technical credibility across cloud platforms and AI/LLM-based systems

Experience implementing policy-as-code and governance automation frameworks

Strong understanding of AI security risks, identity controls, and enterprise governance requirements

Ability to establish direction and execute effectively in ambiguous environments

Demonstrated experience influencing stakeholders and driving outcomes across cross-functional teams

Experience partnering with Security, Infrastructure, Data, and business technology organizations

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

Experience building enterprise AI platforms from the ground up

Experience with internal developer platforms and platform-as-a-product operating models

Familiarity with retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and agentic AI workflows

Experience with FinOps and cloud cost optimization strategies

Exposure to SRE practices and modern platform engineering tooling

Experience integrating AI and cloud capabilities into enterprise ecosystems

Product-minded leadership approach focused on adoption and measurable impact

Strong systems thinking and enterprise change leadership capabilities

Comfortable navigating emerging technologies and evolving organizational priorities