Director of Engineering

Darum lohnt es sich

Requirements10+ years of engineering leadership experience, including leading managers of managers5+ years building or scaling cloud-native, infrastructure, or platform engineering productsDeep familiarity with Kubernetes and the Cloud Native ecosystemExperience building SaaS control planes or distributed systems at scaleStrong understanding of APIs, SDKs, declarative systems, and extensibility frameworksProven experience growing ecosystem-driven products (marketplaces, providers, plugins, or integrations)Track record of delivering reliable production services with strong uptime and performance standardsAbility to operate strategically while diving deep technically(Desirable) Experience with Crossplane and/or Kubernetes(Desirable) Background in platform engineering or internal developer platforms(Desirable) Experience building multi-tenant control plane architectures(Desirable) Startup experience in high-growth infrastructure companies(Desirable) Passion for programmable infrastructure and AI-native systemsWhat the job involvesUpbound is building the control plane for the modern enterprise.

Upbound enables organizations to compose, manage, and operate infrastructure and services through declarative, programmable control planes.Upbound Cloud delivers hosted, multi-tenant control planes that power platform engineering teams at scale.

As we scale into the next phase of growth, we are hiring a Director to lead our Control Planes & Ecosystem GroupAs Director of Control Planes & Ecosystem, you will own the strategy and execution for the customer-facing control plane experience across:Crossplane: Upstream work and contributions for the open source Crossplane ProjectUpbound Crossplane: Upbound’s Enterprise Distribution of CrossplaneUpbound Marketplace: The place where Users and Customers discover contentUpbound Official Providers and Extensions: Development and maintenance of Providers, Add-Ons, Functions, and morePartner Integrations: Development of Extensions with third party partnersThis is a senior leadership role responsible for scaling teams, defining long-term architecture strategy, and shaping how enterprises adopt programmable control planes through a thriving ecosystemYou will lead multiple managers and high-performing engineering teams, driving cohesion across product and user experiencesControl Plane & Enterprise StrategyHelp define and drive the long-term vision for hosted control planes and ecosystem extensibilityEnsure Marketplace, UXP, APIs, and Extensions operate as a cohesive control plane experienceShape how platform engineering teams compose infrastructure through Crossplane-powered abstractionsDrive reliability, scalability, and production-grade control planes at scaleEcosystem LeadershipOwn the strategy for Upbound Marketplace as the distribution layer for Crossplane providers, extensions, and control plane building blocksGrow and strengthen the provider ecosystem (ISVs, cloud providers, platform partners)Enable extension frameworks that allow customers and partners to build on top of Upbound control planesEnsure ecosystem experiences are intuitive, secure, and enterprise-readyOrganizational LeadershipLead managers and managers-of-managers across multiple teamsScale engineering org structure to support product velocity and ecosystem expansionEstablish operational rigor: roadmap planning, delivery predictability, uptime SLAs, and production excellenceFoster a culture of ownership, innovation, and deep technical craftsmanshipCross-Functional InfluencePartner closely with Product, GTM, Alliances, and Customer Success to align ecosystem strategy with revenue goalsTranslate enterprise customer needs into scalable control plane capabilitiesRepresent engineering in executive-level conversations around ecosystem expansion and AI-native infrastructure #J-18808-Ljbffr As the company behind Crossplane, the open-source CNCF project that extends Kubernetes into an AI-native cloud control plane.

Our vision extends beyond infrastructure management into an AI-native Control Fabric — where control planes become programmable, extensible, and ecosystem-driven.