Director, Developer Platform

American Airlines Group - DFW Airport, TX

Full-time - Director

DFW Airport, TX

Air Transportation

About the position

As a Director of Developer Platform at American Airlines, you will play a pivotal role in shaping the technology landscape of the company. This position is designed for a technology leader who possesses a proven track record in steering the strategic direction of technology and overseeing the core technical platforms that are essential for the seamless integration of services. Your primary focus will be to ensure that these platforms provide a robust and user-friendly experience for engineers, thereby enhancing the overall developer experience. You will be expected to lead the execution and evolution of platform engineering capabilities that support teams across the organization, ensuring that standardized patterns are discovered, utilized, and shared effectively. In this role, you will champion the developer platform strategy and roadmap, working closely with platform architects to align platform services across enterprise leaders. You will adopt a reuse-first mindset, encouraging product teams to leverage core services. Your leadership will be critical in setting the developer engineering and delivery strategy, ensuring its successful execution across the enterprise. You will also be responsible for unlocking enablement by leading a team that defines and builds core, reusable services, while actively engaging in the implementation of architectural designs and engineering processes that facilitate rapid innovation and modernization of applications. Your responsibilities will include partnering with development teams to evolve capabilities and implement practical automation solutions that can be consumed in a self-service manner. You will contribute to delivering quality-driven enterprise architecture-aligned engineering practices across products and maintain the core technology stack to ensure all systems operate on supported technologies. Additionally, you will manage budgets and personnel, engage with leadership in scoping and planning processes, and support your team through coaching and career development opportunities. Attracting, retaining, and developing talent within a diverse team will also be a key focus, alongside ensuring the smooth day-to-day operations of shared data platforms.

Responsibilities

• Lead developer platform engineering teams utilizing Agile and DevOps practices
• Champion the developer platform strategy and roadmap, alongside platform architects
• Lead with a reuse first mindset, exciting product teams to consume core services
• Focus on the alignment of platform services across enterprise leaders
• Play a critical role in setting the developer engineering and delivery strategy and ensuring its execution for the enterprise
• Unlock enablement through leading the team responsible for defining and building core, reusable services
• Actively engage in implementing architectural designs and engineering processes that enable delivery teams, support rapid innovation, modernize applications and development lifecycles, and facilitate migration to the public cloud
• Partner with development teams to evolve capabilities and facilitate practical automation solutions that can be consumed in a self-service manner
• Contribute to delivering quality-driven enterprise architecture-aligned and engineering practices across products
• Evolve and maintain our core platforms technology stack with focus on ensuring all systems run on supported technologies/platforms
• Manage budgets and personnel; engage with leadership in the scoping and planning process
• Support personnel through coaching, counselling, learning opportunities, and career development
• Manage vendor relationships and staff augmentation strategies
• Attract, retain, and develop talent within a diverse team
• Ensure smooth day-to-day operations of shared data platforms

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent work experience required in Computer Science, Systems Engineering, Information Systems Management, or related field
• 10 years of experience in leading Agile, DevOps and security practices to manage technology delivery
• 7 years of progressive leadership experience, including experience leading other technical managers and team members
• Demonstrates the highest level of ethics and integrity
• Excellent communication and presentation skills, with the ability to handle complex topics comfortably with both technical and non-technical audiences, and to interact effectively with all levels, both verbally and written
• Ability to adapt to unexpected events, new facts, and rapidly changing circumstances
• Ability to thrive in a sense-of-urgency environment and leverage best practices
• Strong understanding of developer tool enablement focused on writing, testing, and debugging applications, including underlying technical primitives, from the IDE to production
• Proficiency in deployment and hosting patterns for various architectures, including but not limited to client-server, microservices, serverless
• Proven leadership in collaboration and team development capabilities and practices, like source code management and reviews, CI/CD, work item management, and data visualization (a la DORA metrics)
• Strong knowledge and proven execution around security, risk, and compliance with a focus on software supply chain security, artifact management and provenance, and vulnerability scanning & remediation patterns
• Demonstrated understanding of emerging technology trends
• Proven ability to manage internal and external resources, as well as manage relationships with 3rd party providers and partners
• Ability to think strategically, negotiate skillfully, digest complex details, and use sound judgment and initiative in making decisions
• Demonstrated ability to solve, and to lead others in solving, complex analytical problems
• Willingness to take calculated risks
• Ability to build and facilitate relationships at all levels of the organization, both internally and externally
• Self-driven with a natural aptitude for engaging employees in multiple workgroups
• Believes in, promotes and embodies in daily actions the American Airlines five leadership attributes: Caring, Collaboration, Development, Results, Future

Nice-to-haves

• Advanced Degree in related field

Benefits

• Travel Perks: Access to 365 destinations on more than 6,800 daily flights across our global network
• Health Benefits: Access to health, dental, prescription and vision benefits from day one
• Wellness Programs: Tools, resources, and support for personal wellness
• 401(k) Program: Available upon hire with potential employer contributions after one year
• Additional Benefits: Employee Assistance Program, pet insurance, and discounts on hotels, cars, cruises and more