Lead Platform Engineer

Job Family

IT - General

Job Description Summary

As a Lead Platform Engineer, you will set the technical direction for the design, build, instrumentation, and ongoing evolution of the organization’s monitoring and observability platforms. You will lead the configuration and customization of platform and monitoring solutions to meet business and technical requirements, with a strong focus on Application Performance Monitoring (APM), Real-User Monitoring (RUM), Synthetics, and Database visibility using AppDynamics, and complementary tooling.
In this role, you will be accountable for platform and monitoring stability, security, performance, scalability, and architectural standards across teams. You will partner closely with application and infrastructure stakeholders to translate business needs into robust solution designs, guide instrumentation and implementation decisions, and ensure platforms and monitoring solutions support long-term growth and operational efficiency.
The Lead Platform Engineer is expected to champion automation-first observability, proactively identify performance and reliability improvement opportunities, and provide technical leadership in troubleshooting complex issues. Your leadership and expertise will enable the organization to streamline operations, improve service reliability, and elevate overall productivity through well-architected, resilient, and well-instrumented platforms.

Job Description

Responsibilities 

• Lead the design, development, and evolution of enterprise monitoring and observability solutions supporting IT operations systems, infrastructure, and applications across cloud and on-premises environments.
• Provide technical leadership for business and technical analysis, architectural reviews, and application monitoring instrumentation strategies in partnership with application teams.
• Drive strategy and implementation of Application Performance Monitoring (APM) instrumentation using AppDynamics, including transaction tracing, service baselines, and performance analytics.
• Design and implement Real-User Monitoring (RUM), synthetic monitoring, and database monitoring to provide end-to-end visibility into application health and user experience.
• Lead and continuously improve enterprise-scale CI/CD processes and pipelines, including automated deployment and configuration of monitoring agents and instrumentation.
• Drive automated monitoring, alerting, and health modeling across platforms and services using AppDynamics, Elastic, and cloud-native tooling.
• Oversee the design and development of ingest pipelines, visualizations, and dashboards for structured and unstructured telemetry data (logs, metrics, traces).
• Lead the design and implementation of triggered alerting, including on-screen alerts and integrations with ITSM (ServiceNow) and Event Management (BigPanda) platforms.
• Provide escalation support and technical leadership for complex incidents, with an emphasis on interpreting APM, RUM, and database telemetry to accelerate root cause analysis.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to gather requirements, develop solution designs, and ensure scalability, resiliency, and efficiency of platform and observability architectures.
• Establish and govern monitoring standards, system guidelines, process documentation, and training materials to enable consistent instrumentation by application teams.
• Proactively assess and lead responses to emerging requirements, ambiguous technology decisions, and evolving observability needs.
• Lead and coordinate IT and business unit initiatives related to platform, monitoring, and collaboration solutions, including migrations, acquisitions, and divestitures.

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Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, a related field, or equivalent experience; 8–10+ years of related professional experience.
• Demonstrated ability to lead the design, enforcement, and adoption of application and platform monitoring standards in collaboration with engineering teams.
• Hands-on experience instrumenting applications using AppDynamics, including APM agent deployment, configuration, and performance tuning.
• Strong knowledge of Real-User Monitoring (RUM), synthetic monitoring, and database monitoring concepts, with practical experience implementing them at scale.
• General experience designing and implementing monitoring and observability solutions in complex enterprise environments.
• Extensive experience architecting, engineering, and scaling distributed telemetry pipelines (Elastic ingestion, normalization, dashboards).
• Expert-level proficiency in alert normalization, enrichment, correlation, and noise reduction at enterprise scale.
• Advanced experience with webhook-based and API-driven event ingestion and integration frameworks.
• Deep understanding of observability signals (logs, metrics, traces) and how APM, RUM, synthetics, and database insights combine to drive actionable outcomes.
• Proven ability to interpret telemetry, identify performance and reliability patterns, and influence engineering and architectural decisions.
• Advanced AWS experience (Lambda, S3, API Gateway, CloudWatch, IAM).
• Strong expertise in CI/CD tooling and practices (Jenkins, Azure Pipelines, etc.).
• Advanced experience with automation and scripting (PowerShell, APIs, infrastructure automation).
• Proven experience as a Lead Platform Engineer or similar senior engineering role (M365, AWS, or Azure environments).

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Preferred Qualifications

• Hands-on experience with AppDynamics
• Expertise with Elastic and advanced observability platform capabilities.
• Knowledge and experience administering Event Management platforms (BigPanda)
• Strong knowledge of security best practices in platform and cloud engineering.
• Cloud certifications (AWS, GCP, M365).
• Proven ability to mentor, coach, and technically lead engineers across teams.

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Working Conditions

• On call may be required
• Hybrid/Office environment (Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays)
• Minimal travel.

This job description is not a contract of employment nor for any specific job responsibilities. The Company may change, add to, remove, or revoke the terms of this job description at its discretion. Managers may assign other duties and responsibilities as needed. In the event an employee or applicant requests or requires accommodation to perform job functions, the applicable HR Business Partner should be contacted to evaluate the accommodation request.

Compensation

The Salary for this position generally ranges between $125,000 - $160,000 annually. Please note that the salary range is a good faith estimate for this position and actual starting pay is determined by several factors including qualifications, experience, geography, work location designation (in-office, hybrid, remote) and operational needs. Salary may vary above and below the stated amounts, as permitted by applicable law.

Additionally, this position is typically eligible for an Annual Bonus based on the Company Bonus Plan/Individual Performance and is at the Company’s discretion. 

Applicants must be authorized to work for any employer in the U.S. We are unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of an employment Visa at this time.

This is a hybrid position requiring three days in office per week in one of our hub locations (Philadelphia, PA; Cedar Rapids, IA; Denver, CO).  Relocation assistance will not be provided for this position.

What We Offer  

For eligible employees, we offer a comprehensive benefits package designed to support both the personal and financial well-being of our employees. 

Compensation Benefits 

• Competitive Pay 

• Bonus for Eligible Employees 

Benefits Package 

• Pension Plan 

• 401k Match

• Employee Stock Purchase Plan

• Tuition Reimbursement

• Disability Insurance

• Medical Insurance

• Dental Insurance

• Vision Insurance

• Employee Discounts

• Career Training & Development Opportunities

Health and Work/Life Balance Benefits 

• Paid Time Off starting at 160 hours annually for employees in their first year of service.

• Ten (10) paid holidays per year (typically mirroring the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) holidays).

• Be Well Company holistic wellness program, which includes Wellness Coaching and Reward Dollars 

• Parental Leave – fifteen (15) days of paid parental leave per calendar year to eligible employees with at least one year of service at the time of birth, placement of an adopted child, or placement of a foster care child.

• Adoption Assistance

• Employee Assistance Program

• Back-Up Care Program

• PTO for Volunteer Hours

• Employee Matching Gifts Program

• Employee Resource Groups

• Inclusion and Diversity Programs

• Employee Recognition Program

• Referral Bonus Programs

Inclusion & Diversity  

  

We believe our commitment to diversity and inclusion creates a work environment filled with exceptional individuals. We’re thrilled to have been recognized for our efforts through the Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index, Dave Thomas Adoption Friendly Advocate, and several Seramount lists, including the Inclusion Index, 100 Best Companies for Working Parents, Best Companies for Dads, and Top 75 Companies for Executive Women. 

  

To foster a culture of inclusivity throughout our workforce, workplace, and marketplace, Transamerica offers a wide range of diversity and inclusion programs. This includes our company-sponsored, employee-driven Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), which are formed around a shared interest or a common characteristic of diversity. ERGs are open to all employees. They provide a supportive environment to help us better appreciate our similarities and differences and understand how they benefit us all. 

   

Giving Back  

  

We believe our responsibilities extend beyond our corporate walls. That's why we created the Aegon Transamerica Foundation in 1994. Through a mix of financial grants and the volunteer efforts of our employees, the foundation supports nonprofit organizations focused on the things that matter most to our people in the communities where we live and work.     

  

Transamerica’s Parent Company  

Aegon acquired the Transamerica business in 1999. Since its start in 1844, Aegon has  grown into an international company serving more than 23.9 million people across the globe.* It offers investment, protection, and retirement solutions, always with a clear purpose: Helping people live their best lives. As a leading global investor and employer, the company seeks to have a positive impact by addressing critical environmental and societal issues, with a focus on climate change and inclusion and diversity.   

* As of December 31, 2023