This is a senior leadership role responsible for defining, leading, and executing the strategy for Nokia's foundational cloud-native software platform across AN product portfolio. The role demands a visionary leader with deep expertise in cloud-native architectures, experience with open-source components, and lifecycle management. The leader will oversee a large, geographically dispersed team, fostering a culture of innovation, technical excellence, and agile delivery to ensure Nokia's platforms are robust, scalable, secure, and future-proof to support our evolving product portfolio and customer needs in a cloud-first world.

This role will be part of the new MI Autonomous Networks organization.

Education:

• Bachelors or Master's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical field is required.

Experience:

• Minimum 15+ years of experience in software development, with at least 5 years in leadership roles managing large global engineering teams.

• Proven track record of successfully leading the development and delivery of complex, large-scale cloud-native software platforms.

• Leadership experience with Kubernetes for container orchestration and application lifecycle management.

• Demonstrated expertise in leveraging, contributing to, and managing open-source components and ecosystems.

• Deep understanding and practical experience with various software development methodologies (Agile, Scrum, SAFe) and DevOps/GitOps practices tailored for cloud-native environments.

Technical Skills:

• Deep understanding of modern cloud-native architecture principles, distributed systems & microservices.

• Expert-level knowledge of Kubernetes, Docker, and containerization technologies.

• Strong grasp of CI/CD tools and practices for cloud-native deployments (e.g., Jenkins, GitLab CI, ArgoCD, Tekton).

• Familiarity with open source technologies typically used in cloud native platforms (Eg: Istio, Prometheus, Grafana, etc).

• Proficiency in multiple programming languages relevant to cloud-native development (e.g., Go, Python, Java).

Leadership & Soft Skills:

• Exceptional strategic thinking and problem-solving abilities, with a proven capacity to translate cloud-native vision into actionable plans.

• Outstanding communication, presentation, and interpersonal skills, capable of influencing and engaging diverse audiences at all levels.

• Demonstrated ability to build, inspire, and lead high-performing global teams in a matrixed organization.

• Strong business acumen and ability to connect technical decisions to business outcomes.

• High degree of adaptability, resilience, and ability to thrive in a fast-paced, evolving environment.

Strategic Leadership & Cloud-Native Vision:

• Define and articulate the long-term technical vision and strategic roadmap for cloud-native software platform for Autonomous Networks aligning with overall objectives and emerging technology trends.

• Drive architectural decisions and technology choices that ensure platform scalability, performance, security, and maintainability, specifically leveraging cloud-native principles and patterns (e.g., microservices, serverless, event-driven architectures).

• Anticipate future technology needs in the cloud-native space and proactively guide platform evolution.

Open-Source & Kubernetes Ecosystem:

• Champion the strategic adoption, contribution to, and effective utilization of open-source components and technologies within platform development.

• Operationalize Kubernetes-based lifecycle management strategies for all platform components, ensuring efficient deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications.

• Drive best practices for integrating, securing, and maintaining open-source software within the product ecosystem.

Global Team Management & Development:

• Lead, mentor, and develop a global organization of senior engineering managers, architects, and software developers.

• Foster a high-performance, collaborative, and inclusive culture across diverse geographical locations, promoting continuous learning in cloud-native technologies.

• Implement best practices for talent acquisition, retention, performance management, and career development within the platform software domain.

Engineering Excellence & Innovation:

• Champion engineering best practices, including agile methodologies, DevOps, GitOps, continuous integration/delivery (CI/CD) pipelines optimized for cloud-native deployments, and automated testing.

• Drive innovation within platform development, exploring and integrating new cloud-native technologies (e.g., service mesh, observability tools, cloud-native security) to enhance platform capabilities.

• Ensure the delivery of high-quality, reliable, and secure software platforms that meet stringent industry standards.

Cross-Functional Collaboration & Stakeholder Management:

• Collaborate closely with product management, other business units, and customer-facing teams to understand requirements and ensure platform capabilities meet market demands for Autonomous Networks

• Represent AN platform strategy internally and externally, engaging with key customers, partners, and industry forums on cloud-native and open-source topics.

Budget & Resource Management:

• Oversee the annual budget planning and resource allocation for global platform software development initiatives, optimizing for cloud infrastructure and open-source tooling.

Risk Management & Compliance:

• Identify and mitigate technical, operational, and security risks related to platform development and open-source dependencies.