Hi all, One of my colleagues is looking to hire the below role at ADCB one of the largest banks in the UAE : Tech Lead – Platform Engineering I am not hiring a simple senior architect : I am looking for the person who will build the platform that makes every other engineer in the company dangerously fast. This is a rare green-field-but-not-really role: we already have momentum (CLI-triggered orchestrator, src/infra templates, pipelines with quality/security/compliance gates, Jira/Compass/GitHub integrations are in flight), but the real platform — the one that will define how we ship software for the next 5–7 years — is still yours to shape. The Vision (that needs the best candidate) * By the end of 2027, any engineer in the company (backend, data, AI, Open Finance) will be able to spin up fully governed, secure, production-ready microservices and other cloud infrastructures in under 30 minutes, with zero compliance paperwork, zero security review delays, and cost visibility from day one. * ⁠The platform will be the single biggest competitive advantage that lets us move faster than fintech startups while keeping the rigor of a regulated financial institution. This is not a cost-center infrastructure team: this is the product that every other product team depends on. You will own the developer experience for 300+ engineers and counting. Your 24-months draft agenda (what you’ll actually build) by Q2 2026 → MVP that people love (prove its worth) * Ship the polished orchestrator CLI + Portal v1. * ⁠Full golden paths for microservices platforms on AWS and Azure including queuing, caching, OpenTelemetry, Keys, Secrets … * ⁠Automated gates: trivy, checkov, tfsec, infracost, mandatory tags, compliance-as-code … * ⁠Jira ↔️ GitHub ↔️ ServiceNow closed loop (issues auto-created on failures, changes tracked). * ⁠Onboard first 8 teams, achieve ≥50% reduction in average time-to-first-deployment. * ⁠Establish DORA + SPACE metrics dashboard that leadership actually looks at every month. by Q1 2027 → scale & self-service (make the go to product) * AI-assisted service creation (LLM generates boilerplate, suggests configs, explains decisions). * ⁠Environment promotion workflows with automated rollback + feature flags standard. * ⁠FinOps + sustainability governance (auto-right-sizing, carbon-aware scheduling). * ⁠Module marketplace: teams can publish and consume approved modules with SLSA 3+ provenance. * ⁠20+ teams onboarded, targeting Elite DORA performance (multiple deploys/day, <1h lead time) 2027 → Platform as product organization (make it legendary) * Full team topologies maturity: platform squad treated as product with proper PM + UX * ⁠AI/ML-specific golden paths (feature store, model registry, experiment tracking). * ⁠Open Finance & regulatory automation (automated evidence collection for audits). * ⁠External reference case: speak at PlatformCon, DevOps Days, etc. What you’ll actually do (no fluff) * Own the full platform roadmap and backlog: you decide priorities, I back you. * ⁠Run discovery workshops and say “no” when needed (political capital included). * ⁠Define and publish the DevEx metrics that get presented to the GCIO and IT Management. * ⁠Hands-on build the hard parts when required: I expect you to code/review/architect. * ⁠Hire and lead the platform team (4–6 engineers in first 12 months). * ⁠Be the face of platform engineering internally and externally. Who am I looking for? * You’ve built and scaled an Internal Developer Platform at >200 engineer company (fintech/regulatory experience = huge plus) * ⁠Battle scars from Terraform modules, Backstage/Port/Humanitec, Checkov, CI/CD orchestration. * ⁠Can talk fluent business value (cycle time → revenue impact) and fluent engineering. * ⁠Gets genuinely excited about making security & compliance feel like magic instead of pain! If you’re reading this and thinking, “finally, someone who gets it”: this role is written for you. —> Let’s talk. DM me if you are interested or know someone who would be a good fit, and I'll pass it along to my colleague. All the best Michael Hartmann Head - Open Finance, ADCB

👏👏👏 for this JD / posting the plan for the role