Deputy Director, Platform Engineering

Job Description
See What You're Missing
At BAE Systems, our employees develop some of the world's most advanced electronics-from systems that help protect F-35 pilots to technologies that provide soldiers with a decisive advantage in the field. Across air, land, sea, space, and cyber, we develop and deliver the technologies of tomorrow, today.
Our customers depend on us to solve complex problems that directly support national security and mission success. Our work is guided by a clear purpose: We Protect Those Who Protect Us®.
Role Overview
The Platform Engineering organization operates the Virtual Cloud Computing Center, or VC3, a foundational engineering capability across Electronic Systems.
VC3 is a secure, multi-region engineering development platform that delivers Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service, and Software as a Service products that enable engineering teams to develop, integrate, test, and deliver modernized workloads across unclassified, controlled, and classified environments.
Platform Engineering is seeking a Deputy Director of Platform Engineering to provide technical, operational, and organizational leadership for VC3 and its supporting products. Reporting to the Director of Platform Engineering, the Deputy Director will translate platform strategy into executable architectures, product roadmaps, operational priorities, and measurable engineering outcomes.
The Deputy Director will lead the day-to-day integration of Site Reliability Engineering, DevOps Engineering, IT Operations, Security Engineering, cybersecurity, infrastructure engineering, and platform product teams. The successful candidate must be comfortable operating in both executive-level discussions and detailed technical engagements.
This is not solely a program-management position. The Deputy Director must have the technical judgment to guide engineering decisions, evaluate risk, lead through significant operational events, and ensure VC3 continues to evolve as a secure, reliable, scalable, and product-oriented platform.
This position will be performed in a hybrid work format, with time split between onsite and remote work.
Specific Job Responsibilities
Responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

• Serve as the principal deputy to the Director of Platform Engineering and represent the organization in technical, operational, investment, and governance forums.
• Lead the integrated execution of Platform Engineering priorities across engineering, operations, and security disciplines.
• Translate business and platform strategy into prioritized roadmaps, investment plans, organizational goals, and measurable outcomes.
• Provide leadership and governance for the architecture, delivery, operation, security, resilience, and lifecycle management of VC3 products.
• Advance VC3 as a product-oriented engineering platform by improving self-service, standardization, reliability, user experience, and adoption.
• Lead the VC3 initiative portfolio, including priorities, resources, budgets, schedules, dependencies, risks, and expected business value.
• Build strong partnerships with engineering programs, business areas, SecureIT, facilities, finance, supply chain, and enterprise technology organizations.
• Lead, develop, and retain engineering managers, technical leaders, architects, and individual contributors while promoting a culture of ownership, collaboration, and technical excellence.

Technical Depth Expectations
The Deputy Director must possess sufficient technical depth to assess architectures, challenge assumptions, identify risk, and guide decisions across the Platform Engineering portfolio.
The successful candidate should demonstrate strong expertise in several of the following areas:

• Private, hybrid, and public-cloud architecture, including virtualization and multi-region environments.
• Platform Engineering, internal developer platforms, service catalogs, self-service, golden paths, and platform-as-a-product practices.
• Kubernetes, container platforms, workload isolation, networking, storage, security, and lifecycle management.
• Infrastructure as Code, GitOps, policy as code, APIs, automated provisioning, testing, and remediation.
• Site Reliability Engineering, including SLOs, incident management, resilience, disaster recovery, capacity planning, and operational readiness.
• Observability, including metrics, logging, tracing, alerting, dashboards, and operational telemetry.
• DevSecOps, CI/CD, artifact management, software factories, and secure developer workflows.
• Zero Trust, identity, vulnerability management, continuous compliance, RMF, NIST SP 800-171, and CMMC.
• Enterprise compute, storage, networking, identity, backup, and geographically distributed infrastructure.
• Advanced engineering workloads such as HPC, GPU computing, AI/ML platforms, SLURM, simulation, and digital engineering.
• Architecture governance, technical reviews, trade studies, lifecycle planning, and risk-based decision-making.
• Cost, utilization, capacity, license optimization, and infrastructure investment planning.

Required Education, Experience, & Skills

• Ability to obtain and maintain a Secret security clearance.
• Bachelor's degree in a technical or engineering discipline and 10 or more years of progressive experience. Equivalent education and experience may be considered.
• Significant leadership experience in Platform Engineering, cloud, infrastructure, SRE, DevOps, DevSecOps, cybersecurity, or large-scale technology operations.
• Demonstrated experience leading cross-functional and geographically distributed technical teams.
• Proven ability to translate strategy into executable plans, investments, organizational priorities, and measurable results.
• Experience managing complex technical initiatives involving cost, schedule, resources, risk, and organizational dependencies.
• Strong executive communication, decision-making, organizational, and talent-development skills.

Preferred Education, Experience, & Skills

• Active or higher-level security clearance.
• Master's degree in a relevant technical, engineering, or business discipline.
• Prior experience as a senior technical leader, chief engineer, platform leader, infrastructure leader, or deputy director.
• Experience operating platforms within classified, controlled, CUI, or other highly regulated environments.
• Experience with technologies such as VMware, Azure Stack, OpenStack, AWS, Kubernetes, Rancher, GitLab, Azure DevOps, MinIO, Ceph, Morpheus, Splunk, Grafana, Terraform, or Ansible.
• Relevant technical certifications in cloud, Kubernetes, cybersecurity, SRE, networking, virtualization, or enterprise architecture.

Pay Information
Full-Time Salary Range: $153377 - $260743
Please note: This range is based on our market pay structures. However, individual salaries are determined by a variety of factors including, but not limited to: business considerations, local market conditions, and internal equity, as well as candidate qualifications, such as skills, education, and experience.
Employee Benefits: At BAE Systems, we support our employees in all aspects of their life, including their health and financial well-being. Regular employees scheduled to work 20+ hours per week are offered: health, dental, and vision insurance; health savings accounts; a 401(k) savings plan; disability coverage; and life and accident insurance. We also have an employee assistance program, a legal plan, and other perks including discounts on things like home, auto, and pet insurance. Our leave programs include paid time off, paid holidays, as well as other types of leave, including paid parental, military, bereavement, and any applicable federal and state sick leave. Employees may participate in the company recognition program to receive monetary or non-monetary recognition awards. Other incentives may be available based on position level and/or job specifics.
About BAE Systems Electronic Systems
BAE Systems, Inc. is a defense, aerospace, and security company headquartered in Falls Church, Virginia, with more than 40,000 employees worldwide. We serve, supply, and protect those who protect us. As one of the most geographically diverse international defense companies, we deliver a full range of products and services spanning air, land, maritime, space, and cyber, including advanced electronics, intelligence solutions, and dedicated customer support.
Our culture is performance-driven and values-led, built on curiosity, creativity, and collaboration. Purpose isn't a tagline here. It's what drives us. We're developing breakthrough technologies that defend national security and make a lasting impact on our communities and our planet. When you join BAE Systems, you're not just building a career. You're contributing to a mission that truly matters.
This position will be posted for at least 5 calendar days. The posting will remain active until the position is filled, or a qualified pool of candidates is identified.