Director of Network Platform Engineering

Overview

Xplore Inc. is Canada’s fibre, 5G and satellite broadband company for rural living. Xplore is committed to the relentless pursuit of an improved broadband experience for all Canadians. Xplore is building a world-class fibre optic and 5G wireless network to enable innovative broadband services for better every day rural living, for today and future generations.

The Director of Network Platform Engineering is responsible for building and operating the shared compute, data, and automation platforms that power all value streams across Xplore. This includes cloud-native infrastructure, Kubernetes platforms, VM clusters, automation frameworks, observability systems, internal developer platforms (IDPs), data engineering pipelines, internal application development, and infrastructure engineering for on-prem cloud-native environments. This role does not own any network domains — no fiber, no IP core, no transport, no RAN, no wireless core. Those remain with the Director of Core & Transport, Director of 3 Fiber Network, Director of Fixed Wireless Engineering, and Director of Fixed Wireless Service Assurance & Site Reliability Engineering. Instead, this role provides the compute substrate, data pipelines, and tooling ecosystem on which network engineering, service assurance, OSS/BSS, analytics, and digital teams run their automation, applications, and operational systems. The Director partners closely with IT Platform Engineering to ensure alignment on cloud strategy, shared tooling, best practices, and enterprise data architecture — enabling the refinement of bronze and silver network telemetry into gold-tier datasets within Azure to support enterprise insights, automation, and service orchestration.

Key Responsibilities

• Platform Strategy & Leadership
• Define and execute the platform engineering strategy aligned with Xplore’s digital transformation and automation goals.
• Establish platform roadmaps for cloud, Kubernetes, VM clusters, automation, observability, and data platforms.
• Lead and grow high-performing teams across platform engineering, Site Reliability Engineering, data engineering, infrastructure engineering, and internal application development.
• Advise executive leadership on platform scalability, resilience, modernization, and cost optimization.
• Compute Platform Ownership
• Own the compute substrate for all value streams, including:
• Kubernetes clusters
• VM clusters and virtualization platforms
• Cloud and hybrid compute environments
• Internal developer platforms (IDPs)
• Ensure these platforms provide secure, reliable, and consistent environments for network tooling, OSS/BSS, analytics, and enterprise IT workloads.
• Standardize platform services to reduce complexity and accelerate delivery across the organization.
• Infrastructure Engineering (On-Prem & Hybrid Cloud)
• Lead infrastructure engineers responsible for on-prem cloud-native infrastructure, virtualization, and compute clusters.
• Ensure seamless integration between on-prem compute and Azure cloud environments.
• Build and maintain pipelines that deliver network telemetry and operational data into the enterprise architecture.
• Partner with IT Platform Engineering to align on best practices, shared tooling, and cloud governance.
• Data Engineering & Enterprise Data Integration
• Lead data engineering teams responsible for ingesting, transforming, and refining network telemetry and operational data.
• Build and operate pipelines that convert bronze and silver network data into gold-tier datasets within the Azure enterprise architecture.
• Enable enterprise analytics, automation, AI/ML, and service provisioning orchestration.
• Ensure data quality, lineage, governance, and reliability across all pipelines.
• Internal Application Development
• Lead application developers building internal tools, automation apps, dashboards, and platform services.
• Ensure applications are cloud-native, secure, scalable, and integrated with platform standards.
• Provide reusable components and frameworks that accelerate development across network and IT teams.
• Platform Architecture & Enablement
• Design and operate internal developer platforms that abstract infrastructure complexity for engineering, network, and software teams.
• Standardize platform capabilities including:
  • Kubernetes and container orchestration
  • CI/CD pipelines
  • Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
  • Secrets management and identity
  • Observability and telemetry tooling
• Ensure platforms support real-time network automation, analytics, and operational tooling.
• Reliability, Resilience & Operations
• Embed Site Reliability Engineering principles such as SLIs, SLOs, error budgets, and automated remediation.
• Drive improvements in availability, latency, and operational stability across all platform services.
• Own platform-level incident management, blameless post-incident reviews, and continuous improvement.
• Partner with NOC, Service Assurance, and Engineering teams to evolve toward platform-driven operations.
• DevOps & Automation
• Enable DevOps practices across engineering and network teams through reusable tooling and automation frameworks.
• Implement GitOps, CI/CD, and automated testing for network automation, OSS/BSS, and digital services.
• Reduce manual operational effort through orchestration, self-service capabilities, and automation pipelines.
• Security, Compliance & Governance
• Ensure platforms meet telecom-grade security, privacy, and regulatory requirements.
• Embed security controls into pipelines (DevSecOps).
• Manage identity, access controls, encryption, and auditability across compute and data platforms.
• Establish platform governance, standards, and best practices.
• Financial & Vendor Management
• Own platform budgets, cost controls, and cloud spend optimization (FinOps).
• Evaluate and manage strategic vendors, cloud providers, and technology partners.
• Balance build-vs-buy decisions with long-term scalability and cost efficiency.

Required Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in platform engineering, cloud infrastructure, data engineering, or large-scale compute environments.
• 5+ years in senior leadership roles.
• Deep understanding of:
  • Kubernetes and container orchestration
  • Cloud platforms (Azure, AWS, GCP, or private cloud)
  • CI/CD and automation frameworks
  • Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, Ansible, etc.)
  • Data engineering pipelines and distributed data systems
• Proven experience implementing Site Reliability Engineering and DevOps operating models.
• Experience supporting 24×7 mission-critical services with strict SLAs.
• Strong leadership, communication, and stakeholder management skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience modernizing OSS/BSS platforms or network automation systems.
• Familiarity with CNFs, NFV, and cloud-native network workloads.
• Experience with observability platforms (metrics, logging, tracing) at telecom scale.
• Exposure to FinOps, capacity planning, and large-scale cost optimization.
• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field.

Success Measures

• Highly reliable and scalable compute and data platforms supporting all value streams.
• Faster delivery of automation, tooling, and internal applications.
• Reduced operational toil and incident frequency.
• Increased developer, data, and network team productivity.
• Optimized cloud and compute infrastructure costs.
• Seamless integration of network telemetry into Azure enterprise architecture.

Condition of Employment

As a condition of employment and in order to comply with industry related data security standards, this position is subject to the successful completion of a Criminal Background Check. Details will be supplied to applicants as they move through the selection process.

Xplore is committed to creating an accessible environment and will accommodate disabilities during the selection process. Please let your recruiter know during the selection process of any accommodation needs.

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