Lead Platform Engineer

Job FamilyIT - GeneralAbout UsAt Transamerica, hard work, innovative thinking, and personal accountability are qualities we honor and reward. We understand the potential of leveraging the talents of a diverse workforce. We embrace an environment where employees enjoy a balance between their careers, families, communities, and personal interests.Ultimately, we appreciate the uniqueness of a company where talented professionals work collaboratively in a positive environment - one focused on helping people look forward and plan for the best life possible while providing tools and solutions that make it easier to get there.Who We AreWe believe everyone deserves to live their best life. More than a century ago, we were among the first financial services companies in America to serve everyday people from all walks of life.Today, we're part of an international holding company, with millions of customers and thousands of employees worldwide. Our insurance, retirement, and investment solutions help people make the most of what's important to them.We're empowered by a vast agent network covering North America, with diversity to match. Together with our nonprofit research institute and foundation, we tune in, step up, and are a force for good - for our customers and the communities where we live, work, and play. United in our purpose, we help people create the financial freedom to live life on their terms.What We DoTransamerica is organized into three distinct businesses. These include 1) World Financial Group, including Transamerica Financial Advisors, 2) Protection Solutions and Savings & Investments, comprised of life insurance, annuities, employee benefits, retirement plans, and Transamerica Investment Solutions, and 3) Financial Assets, which includes legacy blocks of long term care, universal life, and variable and fixed annuities. These are supported by Transamerica Corporate, which includes Finance, People and Places, General Counsel, Risk, Internal Audit, Strategy and Development, and Corporate Affairs, which covers Communications, Brand, and Government and Policy Affairs.Transamerica employs nearly 7,000 people. It's part of Aegon, an integrated, diversified, international financial services group serving approximately 23.9 million customers worldwide.* For more information, visit transamerica.com.Job Description SummaryAs a Lead Platform Engineer of Observability and Monitoring, you set the technical direction for how enterprise observability and monitoring capabilities are designed, delivered, and consumed across cloud and on premises systems, infrastructure, and applications. Your focus is on enabling application and platform teams to adopt standardized monitoring, logging, and event driven capabilities through well-defined patterns, integrations, and automation. You lead the configuration, customization, and delivery of observability capabilities across enterprise platforms, including application performance monitoring, centralized logging, event correlation, and automated alerting. You establish architectural standards, best practices, and reference designs that ensure monitoring solutions are scalable, resilient, secure, and aligned with enterprise strategy. You provide technical leadership for business and technical analysis, architectural reviews, and complex solution design, partnering closely with stakeholders to translate operational and business requirements into consistent, data driven observability implementations.In this role, you drive enterprise scale adoption of automated monitoring and alerting through CI/CD enablement, configuration as code, and reusable ingestion, dashboard, and visualization patterns for structured and unstructured telemetry data. You lead the design and implementation of alerting and event correlation integrations with ITSM and event management platforms such as BigPanda, ensuring actionable signals flow cleanly from applications and infrastructure into operational workflows.The Lead Platform Engineer is expected to champion automation, security best practices, and continuous improvement in observability capability delivery, with deep hands-on expertise in tools such as Elastic, AppDynamics, and BigPanda. Through mentoring and technical leadership, you enable teams to deliver consistent, scalable, and intelligent monitoring solutions that improve operational visibility, accelerate incident response, and strengthen overall service resilience-without coupling teams to the operational burden of the monitoring platforms themselves.Job DescriptionResponsibilitiesLead the design, development, and evolution of monitoring solutions in support of IT operations systems, infrastructure, and applications, Cloud and On premisesProvide technical leadership for business and technical analysis and architectural reviews with customers.Lead and continuously improve enterprise scale continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) processes and pipelines.Drive strategy and implementation of automated monitoring and alerting across platforms and servicesOversee the design and development of ingest pipelines, visualizations, and dashboard capabilities for structured and unstructured data.Lead the design and implementation of triggered alert functionality, including on screen alerts and event integrations with ITSM and Event Management PlatformsProvide escalation support and leadership for day-to-day Request and Incident ticket work as necessaryLead collaboration with stakeholders to gather requirements, develop solution designs, and ensure scalability, resiliency, and efficiency of platform architectures.Establish and govern system guidelines, process documentation, and training materials for the organization.Proactively assess and lead responses to emerging requirements and ambiguous technology decisions.Lead and coordinate IT and business unit projects related to platform and collaboration solutions, including acquisitions, divestitures, and migrations.QualificationsBachelor's degree in computer science, Information Technology, a related field or equivalent education/experience and 8-10+ years of related work experienceDemonstrated ability to lead the design and enforcement of monitoring standards in collaboration with application teams (AppDynamics, Elastic Stack, CloudWatch, Site24x7)Extensive experience architecting, engineering, and scaling distributed telemetry pipelines (Elastic ingestion, data normalization, dashboards)Expert level proficiency configuring alert normalization, enrichment, and correlation patterns at enterprise scaleAdvanced experience with the Open Integration Hub, webhook based and API driven event ingestionDeep understanding of the BigPanda incident lifecycle, correlation models, and automated routing to ServiceNowExpert understanding of logs, metrics, traces, and observability concepts (APM, RUM, synthetic monitoring)Proven ability to design, configure, and optimize AI driven workflows (automated incident analysis, similar incidents, change risk scoring)Strong familiarity with vector DB concepts, enrichment pipelines, and generative AI guardrailsAdvanced knowledge of SSO, OAuth, API Gateway patterns, and secured data flowsExpert level AWS experience (Lambda, S3, API Gateway, CloudWatch, IAM)Demonstrated ability to interpret telemetry, identify patterns proactively, and influence engineering outcomesAdvanced AI Prompt Engineering ProficiencyExtensive experience interacting with large language models and incorporating them into platform workflowsProven experience as a Lead Platform Engineer or similar role (i.e. M365, AWS, or Azure Engineer).Expert understanding of cloud technologies, DevOps processes, and large-scale automation of services.Extensive experience with CI/CD tools and practices (i.e. Jenkins, Azure Pipelines, etc.).Advanced experience with automation and scripting tools (i.e. PowerShell, Graph API, etc.)Preferred QualificationsHands on leadership experience with BigPanda and Biggy AI implementationsDeep expertise with Elastic and its advanced platform capabilitiesExperience leading monitoring and logging integrations with ServiceNow at scaleStrong knowledge of security best practices in platform and cloud engineeringAdvanced certifications in cloud platforms (GCP, AWS, Azure, M365).Proven ability to mentor, coach, and technically lead engineers across teamsWorking ConditionsOn call may be requiredHybrid/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 an accommodation to perform job functions, the applicable HR Business Partner should be contacted to evaluate the accommodation request.CompensationThe Salary for this position generally ranges between $124,000 - $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 (Cedar Rapids, IA; Denver, CO; Philadelphia, PA). Relocation assistance will not be provided for this position.What We OfferFor 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 EmployeesBenefits Package* Pension Plan* 401k Match* Employee Stock Purchase Plan* Tuition Reimbursement* Disability Insurance* Medical Insurance* Dental Insurance* Vision Insurance* Employee Discounts* Career Training & Development OpportunitiesHealth 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 ProgramsInclusion & DiversityWe 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 BackWe 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 CompanyAegon 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