Director, Platform Engineering

Here at Appian, our values of Intensity and Excellence define who we are. We set high standards and live up to them, ensuring that everything we do is done with care and quality. We approach every challenge with ambition and commitment, holding ourselves and each other accountable to achieve the best results. When you join Appian, you’ll be part of a passionate team dedicated to accomplishing hard things, together.

This role is open to people who are currently in a product leadership role or someone in an engineering leadership role that is interested to make the switch into product.

This role combines experienced product management leadership with the pivotal responsibilities of a Group Product Lead, offering an opportunity to shape the product strategy and the missions of several teams. You will oversee the product management execution working closely with the product managers for several cross-functional software engineering teams around the world. This position reports to the Head of Product for the Platform Engineering Strategic Business Unit, which is responsible for Appian Cloud offering.

An excellent candidate will come with a wide range of experience in a product leadership role in the cloud infrastructure domain at a software-as-a-service firm. The product portfolio owned by this position will cover a wide range of cloud native infrastructure and services – from the highly available, resilient, scalable, and efficient infrastructure components on which all Appian Cloud services operate to the the scalable, enterprise-grade managed services that power the backend data persistence and event streams for customer sites in Appian Cloud. You will provide product management leadership for initiatives that deliver efficient and scalable infrastructure, core compute capacity, and managed data planes as multi-tenant services to accelerate the innovations of Engineering teams throughout the department. Your portfolio will include aspects that intersect with AWS account and VPC topology, Kubernetes clusters, network mesh, and edge web layer, as well as efforts to transform existing systems and software components into cloud-native, Kubernetes-based and multi-tenant managed services while achieving incremental value for our customers from intermediate milestones.  

You'll form strong relationships with counterparts within the Engineering department as well as stakeholders in other departments. You will oversee the creation of an impactful vision and ensure alignment between the product managers in your group and the roadmaps of the feature teams that rely on the services and frameworks provided by your organization. You will be accountable for the business impact of the features your group delivers. This includes owning the product strategy and feature backlog and ensuring effectiveness and adherence to standard product management processes. 

This position is based at our office in Chennai, India. Appian was built on a culture of in-person collaboration, which we believe is a key driver of our mission to be the best. This role will be 5 days office based from 11th Floor, Tower B, Brigade World Trade Center, Chennai.

What you'll do:

• Oversee the initiation, planning, execution, and rollout for strategic initiatives.
• Lead the creation and ongoing maintenance of a multi-team, short-term and long-term feature backlogs strongly aligned to product and corporate vision.  
• Initiate and facilitate conversations across business units and departments to reach alignment on strategy, roadmap, key investments and messaging.  
• Build relationships with key business stakeholders, keeping them apprised of important features, critical scope changes, planned investments.
• Help identify and cultivate the next generation of product management leaders.
• Provide constructive feedback on feature specifications to ensure new feature delivery provides optimal impact.
• Coach product managers on balancing functional and non-functional enhancements and 
  system improvements.
• Continuously enhance and improve the product management processes and techniques at Appian.

About you:

• Strong technical background, likely as a former software architect or developer.
• Proven people management skills in guiding product managers to success.
• Passion for the backend and infrastructure technologies that power cloud-based enterprise software systems, including proprietary, open-source, and industry-standard 
  components, especially those in the Cloud Native Computing Foundation landscape.
• Experience with cloud native technologies and Kubernetes. An especially strong candidate will have previous exposure to the infrastructure behind Software-as-a-Service 
  cloud product offerings.
• Understanding of networking and cross-VPC connectivity and the security and compliance requirements that apply to such systems with respect to enterprise 
  customers. Previous experience with zero trust connectivity implementations would be a strong asset.
• Understanding of data persistence, object storage services, event streaming platforms, multi-tenant shared services, and the security and compliance requirements that apply 
  to such systems with respect to enterprise customers.
• Experience delivering cloud infrastructure features built using AWS services such as EKS, ECR, transit gateways, WAFs, and Global Accelerator (or similar offering from 
  other cloud providers).
• Strong interest in the scalability, performance, security, observability, and reliability of distributed systems.
• Excellent communication skills, comfortable talking high-level strategy with CxOs in the morning and feature details with developers in the afternoon.

Tools and Resources 

• Training and Development: During onboarding, we focus on equipping new hires with the skills and knowledge for success through department-specific training. Continuous learning is a central focus at Appian, with dedicated mentorship and the First-Friend program being widely utilized resources for new hires. 
• Growth Opportunities: Appian provides a diverse array of growth and development opportunities, including our leadership program tailored for new and aspiring managers, a comprehensive library of specialized department training through Appian University, skills based training, and tuition reimbursement for those aiming to advance their education. This commitment ensures that employees have access to a holistic range of development opportunities.
• Community: We’ll immerse you into our community rooted in respect starting on day one. Appian fosters inclusivity through our 8 employee-led affinity groups. These groups help employees build stronger internal and external networks by planning social, educational, and outreach activities to connect with Appianites and larger initiatives throughout the company.

Benefits

Appian offers a comprehensive benefits package designed to support your health, wellbeing, and financial future. Benefits may include health coverage, Employee Assistance Program (EAP) with free mental health support, life and disability insurance, an Employee Stock Purchase Program (ESPP), a retirement/pension plan, wellness dollars, tuition reimbursement, family-forming benefits and more. Benefits vary by country—please ask your Talent Acquisition contact for details specific to the location you are applying to.

About Appian

Appian provides AI automation for the most important business processes at the world’s largest organizations. Our platform is known for its unique power, reliability, and scale. We’ve been automating processes for more than 25 years and have proven expertise in enterprise operations. For more information, visit appian.com. 

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Appian is an equal opportunity employer that strives to attract and retain the best talent. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to any characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law. 

Appian provides reasonable accommodations to applicants in accordance with all applicable laws. If you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the employment process, please contact us by email at ReasonableAccommodations@appian.com. Please note that only inquiries concerning a request for reasonable accommodation will be responded to from this email address.

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