Manager โ Platform Engineering Job #: req34888 Organization: World Bank Sector: Information Technology Grade: GH Term Duration:ย 3 years 0 months Recruitment Type: Local Recruitment Location: Washington, DC,United States Required Language(s): English Preferred Language(s): Closing Date: 11/27/2025 (11:59pm UTC)
Description
Do you want to build a career that is truly worthwhile? Working at the World Bank Group provides a unique opportunity for you to help our clients solve their greatest development challenges. The World Bank Group is one of the largest sources of funding and knowledge for developing countries; a unique global partnership of five institutions dedicated to ending extreme poverty, increasing shared prosperity and promoting sustainable development. With 189 member countries and more than 120 offices worldwide, we work with public and private sector partners, investing in groundbreaking projects and using data, research, and technology to develop solutions to the most urgent global challenges. For more information, visit www.worldbank.org
Business Unit Overview
The mission of the Information and Technology Solutions (ITS) Vice Presidential Unit (VPU) is to leverage information and technology as a force multiplier to accelerate, deepen, and sustain development impact. Their vision is to harness information and technology for a world free of poverty on a livable planet. For more information on ITS, check this video:ย https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=VTFGffa1Y7w.ย
Department Context
The World Bank Group Technology Office (ITSTO) defines and executes the technology strategy for the World Bank Group, ensuring that technological investments and standards deliver secure, resilient, and efficient platforms to support global operations. Through strategic planning, enterprise architecture, platform engineering, and core infrastructure management, ITSTO aligns technology initiatives with the Bank Groupโs mission and business objectives.
ITSTO drives technology-enabled innovation, modernizes infrastructure, and enhances organizational agility. By fostering collaboration across all World Bank Group entitiesโincluding IBRD, IDA, IFC, MIGA, and ICSIDโITSTO leverages technology as a catalyst for accelerating development impact and advancing digital transformation. Its leadership ensures that technology serves as a strategic enabler for achieving the Bank Groupโs development goals, empowering the institution to address emerging challenges and opportunities with greater efficiency and effectiveness.
Unit Context
The ITS Platform Engineering (ITSPL) team is responsible for delivering and managing the World Bank Groupโs core technology platforms, integrating security, automation, and cloud-first strategies to provide resilient and efficient digital services. ITSPL oversees identity and access management, and cloud operations, ensuring that all platforms are robust, secure, and aligned with the institutionโs mission. The team delivers IT platform products and services that blend security with automation and self-service capabilities, including advanced Identity and Access Management (IAM) solutions based on Zero Trust principles.
ITSPL develops standardized cloud services using Infrastructure as Code (IaC) to enable rapid deployment and scalability, allowing ITS Lines of Business to focus on application development while accommodating custom requirements. Cloud operations adhere to enterprise standards, with a strong emphasis on operational excellence, reliability, cost-effectiveness, and the integration of Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) principles.
Key responsibilities include designing, building, and maintaining foundational technology platforms, developing, and managing cloud infrastructure, automation pipelines, and integration frameworks to ensure secure, scalable, and resilient environments. The team leverages modern DevOps practicesโsuch as automated resource provisioning, CI/CD pipelines, and real-time monitoringโto streamline operations and enhance agility. Close collaboration with solution architects, security specialists, and business stakeholders ensures the delivery of robust technical solutions, effective governance, and regulatory compliance. Additionally, ITSPL supports platform architecture, manages cloud assets, and provides ongoing operational support to maintain platform reliability and compliance. The Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) Center of Excellence/Community of Practice (COE/COP) further enhances these efforts by promoting best practices in reliability engineering, fostering knowledge sharing, and driving continuous improvement across teams to ensure high availability, performance, and operational excellence.
Duties and Responsibilities
The Manager of ITS Platform Engineering provides strategic and operational leadership for the design, development, and maintenance of the World Bank Groupโs foundational technology platformsโincluding cloud infrastructure, automation pipelines, identity and access management (IAM), and integration frameworks. This role is accountable for ensuring that all platforms are secure, resilient, scalable, and fully compliant with governance, risk, and security standards. The manager sets the strategic direction for platform engineering, aligns team priorities with organizational objectives, and oversees all aspects of talent management, including recruitment, onboarding, performance evaluation, and career development.
The Manager leads the modernization, automation, and unification of World Bankโs foundational technology platforms into a cohesive, scalable, and intelligent ecosystem that powers development, integration, and operations across all business domains.
This role drives the design and delivery of shared platform capabilitiesโincluding Cloud, Developer Experience (DevEx), Integration, Database, and Site Reliability Engineering (SRE)โto enable secure, efficient, and autonomous delivery of digital services across the enterprise.
By advancing the Platform-as-a-Product model, the Manager transforms platform services into reusable, automated and/or self-service capabilities that improve developer productivity, strengthen system resilience, and accelerate delivery of business value. Through modern engineering practices such as Infrastructure as Code (IaC), CI/CD, observability, and policy-as-code automation, the Manager enhances platform reliability, scalability, and compliance.
The Manager partners closely with product teams and application owners to ensure that the platform ecosystem continuously evolves to meet organizational needs while reducing technical debt and operational friction.
Key responsibilities include:
- Guide the strategic direction for WBGโs enterprise platform ecosystem through the development of a roadmap that unifies, modernizes, and optimizes shared platform capabilities to enhance agility, resilience, and efficiency.
- Champion the adoption of Agile, DevOps, and SAFe practices to improve predictability, flow efficiency, and value delivery across platform and product teams.
- Partner with Lines of Business, product, and technology leaders to strengthen alignment, generate shared ownership, and co-create platform investment priorities grounded in Lean Portfolio Management (LPM) principles.
- Lead the modernization and automation of core platform services, ensuring scalability, efficiency, and self-service enablement with an ambitious goal of Low/No Ops
- Drive adoption of Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC), DevOps, and SRE capabilities that increase delivery velocity and operational reliability.
- Strengthen the developerโs experience ecosystem, ensuring consistent access to pipelines, and golden paths that reduce onboarding friction.
- Embed intelligence and AI-assisted engineering into platform management, monitoring, and incident response to improve speed, accuracy, and resilience.
- Develop and execute the annual roadmap for platform engineering, ensuring alignment with the organizationโs strategic objectives.
- Build, onboard, and develop a high-performing engineering team, fostering a collaborative, innovative, and inclusive work environment.
- Partner with business and technical stakeholders to translate requirements into robust technical solutions, lead change management initiatives, and drive adoption of platform services.
- Oversee performance monitoring, resource allocation, and budget management, ensuring timely completion of documentation and compliance reporting.
- Lead continuous improvement initiatives to advance automation, self-service capabilities, and platform security.
- Enforce governance, risk management, and regulatory compliance across all platform engineering activities.
- Communicate complex technical concepts clearly to non-technical audiences and support organizational change and technology adoption efforts.
- Build, mentor, and empower a diverse, high-performing team to deliver program objectives, ensuring clarity of roles, skills development, and alignment with strategic priorities.
Within the first year, this leader will deliver the following:
- Develop and implement a comprehensive roadmap - Design and launch a detailed roadmap that aligns platform engineering initiatives with the World Bank Groupโs strategic objectives and digital transformation priorities. This roadmap guides technology investment, modernization, and future planning. The leader defines baselines and success metrics, monitors progress regularly, and requests feedback from stakeholders to maintain the roadmap's alignment with current objectives.
- Enhance operational platform efficiency by accelerating AI adoption and embedding DevSecOps practices to improve reliability, delivery, and developer experience.
- FinOps Efficiency - Deploy AI-powered anomaly detection and incorporate insights into monthly cost reviews.
- Developer Experience - Enhance onboarding and self-service processes to achieve a 10% reduction in lead time.
- Incident Management - Implement AIOps event intelligence to decrease incident volume by 15% and improve mean time to resolution (MTTR) by 10% compared to the FY25 baseline.
- Platform Delivery - Integrate DevSecOps practices and automation to realize a 10% increase in flow efficiency across platform delivery.
Selection Criteria
The ideal candidate is a proven technology leader with a strong track record of delivering results in complex, fast-paced enterprise environments. They possess deep expertise in platform engineering, including the design, development, and management of cloud infrastructure, automation pipelines, and integration frameworks. The candidate demonstrates a strategic vision for technologyโs role in advancing organizational objectives and can influence and collaborate effectively at the executive level.
In addition to having a strong work ethic and unquestionable integrity, the selected leader will have the presence to establish immediate credibility with managers, peers, and a complex group of stakeholders.ย In this highly technical role, the candidate will possess outstanding intellect, leadership, and analytical abilities as well as excellent interpersonal, communication, and presentation skills. ย
Key Requirements:
* Masterโs degree in computer science, engineering, information systems, with 12+ years of progressively responsible IT and platform engineering leadership experience (or bachelorโs degree with 15+ years).
* 10+ years of hands-on experience in platform engineering, cloud infrastructure, automation, and solution delivery, preferably in a large financial, governmental, or multinational organization.
* Demonstrated expertise in enterprise platform architecture, cloud-native technologies, automation, Zero/No Ops and integration, including secure and scalable solution design and implementation across global environments.
* Strong knowledge of cloud frameworks and standards (e.g., AWS, Azure, GCP), automation tools (e.g., Terraform, Ansible), and platform governance best practices.
* Experience implementing automated deployment, self-service capabilities, and CI/CD pipelines.
* Demonstrated experience successfully applying emerging technologies and associated opportunities, including AI, containerization, serverless computing, and edge platforms.
* Proven leadership in managing cross-functional engineering teams, resource allocation, strategic planning, and vendor or third-party oversight.
* Demonstrated ability to influence executive stakeholders, translate technical requirements into business outcomes, and drive enterprise-wide technology transformation.
* Strong commitment to fostering a culture of innovation, collaboration, and inclusive leadership, and promoting workforce development.
* Proven expertise in platform modernization and automation, including infrastructure as code (IaC), CI/CD pipeline optimization, containerization, and cloud-native adoption to improve delivery speed, scalability, and resilience.
* Demonstrated experience in developer enablement, including implementation of internal developer portals (IDP), golden paths, and self-service capabilities that improve developer productivity, flow efficiency, and time to value.
* Strong track record in identity and access management (IAM), Zero Trust Architecture, observability, and resilience engineering, ensuring secure, reliable, and policy-driven platform operations.
* Experience leading FinOps and platform cost optimization initiatives, enabling data-driven investment decisions, chargeback models, and automation of cloud and platform financial management practices.
* Strong expertise in managing the platform portfolio by aligning business requirements with standardized platforms, effectively reducing application spread on legacy systems.
Certifications
Required:
* AWS Certified Solutions Architect (Professional) or Azure Solutions Architect Expert
* Platform Engineering Certificate (DASA, MSFT, Google, etc.)
* SAFe Agilist
Preferred:
* Google Professional Cloud Architect
* Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA)
* SAFe Product Manager/Product Owner (POPM)
* HashiCorp Certified: Terraform Associate
* Lean Practitioner
WBG Culture Attributes:
1. Sense of urgency: Anticipate and quickly respond to the needs of internal and external stakeholders.
2. Thoughtful risk-taking: Challenge the status quo and push boundaries to achieve greater impact.
3. Empowerment and accountability: Empower yourself and others to act and hold each other accountable for results.
The World Bank Group values diversity and encourages all qualified candidates who are nationals of World Bank Group member countries to apply, regardless of gender, gender identity, religion, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or disability.ย Sub-Saharan African nationals, Caribbean nationals, and female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.