Director, Platform Product Owner

Requisition ID: 274773 

Join a purpose driven winning team, committed to results, in an inclusive and high-performing culture.

The Team

Global Wealth Banking and Markets Engineering (GWBMT) is the fast-moving, award-winning technology engine that powers Scotiabank's Wealth and Capital Markets businesses.

The Platform Engineering organization provides the foundational technology platforms and cloud services that enable application teams to innovate rapidly, securely, and at scale. Our portfolio includes enterprise Kubernetes platforms spanning on-premises and Google Cloud environments, Cloud Enablement Services, Kafka as a Service, Airflow as a Service, Fine-Grained Access Management capabilities, and future developer platform offerings that accelerate application modernization and cloud adoption.

The Role

We are seeking a Director Platform Product Owner to lead the product strategy, roadmap, adoption, and delivery of a portfolio of enterprise platform products that serve hundreds of engineers and mission-critical applications across the bank.

This role sits at the intersection of technology, product management, engineering, and business strategy. The successful candidate will be responsible for defining and evolving platform products that enable cloud adoption, application modernization, developer productivity, security, and operational excellence.

As a senior product leader, you will partner closely with Platform Engineering, Architecture, Security, Infrastructure, and application development teams to ensure our platforms deliver measurable business value, exceptional user experiences, and scalable solutions that meet the needs of a rapidly evolving enterprise landscape.

You will act as the voice of the engineering customer while balancing engineering priorities, platform sustainability, risk management, and strategic technology objectives.

Is this role right for you? In this role you will:

1. Product Strategy & Portfolio Leadership

• Define and execute the strategic vision, roadmap, and lifecycle management of a portfolio of platform engineering products and services.
• Develop product strategies that accelerate cloud adoption, platform standardization, application modernization, and engineering productivity.
• Identify emerging customer needs and market trends to drive innovation and platform evolution.
• Establish product success metrics, adoption goals, customer satisfaction targets, and business outcomes.
• Prioritize investments and roadmap initiatives based on business value, engineering impact, risk reduction, and operational efficiency.

Product Portfolio Includes:

• Enterprise Kubernetes Platforms (On-Prem and Google Cloud)
• Cloud Enablement and Migration Services
• Airflow as a Service
• Kafka as a Service
• Fine-Grained Access Management Platforms
• Developer Platform Capabilities and Self-Service Engineering Solutions

2. Customer Engagement & Platform Adoption

• Act as the primary advocate for platform consumers across GBM and enterprise engineering teams.
• Build deep understanding of customer journeys, pain points, and platform adoption barriers.
• Drive platform onboarding strategies and self-service experiences that improve developer productivity.
• Partner with application teams to identify modernization opportunities and accelerate cloud migration initiatives.
• Lead customer advisory forums, feedback programs, and adoption reviews to continually improve platform offerings.

• Establish product analytics frameworks and measurable indicators to track platform utilization, customer outcomes, productivity gains, and business value realization.

3. Technical Product Ownership

• Translate strategic objectives into clear product roadmaps, capabilities, requirements, and delivery plans.
• Collaborate with architects and engineering teams to define platform capabilities, service offerings, APIs, and user experiences.
• Ensure platform products align with enterprise architecture standards, security requirements, and regulatory obligations.
• Define service offerings, operating models, support models, and service-level objectives (SLOs) for platform products.
• Champion platform engineering principles, self-service capabilities, automation, and developer experience improvements.

• Establish service consumption metrics, cost transparency models, showback/chargeback capabilities, and platform ROI measures.

4. Delivery Leadership & Execution

• Lead the planning and execution of platform product initiatives from ideation through delivery and adoption.
• Partner with engineering leaders to balance feature development, platform reliability, technical debt reduction, and operational excellence.
• Drive agile product delivery practices, roadmap governance, backlog prioritization, and release planning.
• Track delivery performance and ensure successful execution of strategic initiatives across multiple platform teams.
• Manage dependencies, risks, and stakeholder expectations across a complex enterprise environment.

5. Platform Reliability, Security & Operational Excellence

• Define and monitor key platform performance indicators, including availability, reliability, scalability, security, adoption, and customer satisfaction.
• Partner with Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), Security, and Operations teams to improve platform resiliency and operational maturity.
• Ensure security controls, access governance, and compliance requirements are embedded within platform services.
• Drive continual improvement initiatives focused on automation, observability, service health, and cost optimization.
• Balance innovation with operational stability and risk management.

• Own the end-to-end platform user experience across onboarding, self-service workflows, documentation, observability, support engagement, and lifecycle management.

6. Stakeholder Management & Executive Communication

• Build strong relationships with senior technology leaders, architects, engineering teams, security stakeholders, and business partners.
• Present product strategy, investment priorities, roadmap progress, and platform value realization to executive leadership.
• Influence strategic technology decisions across cloud, platform engineering, developer experience, and modernization initiatives.
• Communicate complex technical concepts effectively to both technical and non-technical audiences.

Do you have the skills that will enable you to succeed in this role? We’d love to work with you if you have:

• 10+ years of technology experience with at least 5 years in Product Management, Platform Engineering, Cloud Engineering, Developer Platforms, or Infrastructure Services.
• Proven experience leading the strategy, roadmap, and delivery of large-scale platform products.
• Experience working with cloud platforms, enterprise infrastructure, and application modernization initiatives.
• Strong understanding of platform engineering, developer experience, self-service platforms, and product operating models.
• Demonstrated ability to influence senior stakeholders and drive alignment across multiple organizations.
• Experience leading cross-functional teams in complex enterprise environments.
• Outstanding communication, stakeholder management, and executive presentation skills.
• Strong strategic thinking, prioritization, and data-driven decision-making capabilities.

Technical Expertise

• Strong understanding of Kubernetes and container platforms operating across hybrid-cloud environments.
• Experience with public cloud platforms, preferably Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
• Familiarity with event-driven architectures, Kafka, streaming platforms, and modern data infrastructure.
• Understanding of workflow orchestration and data engineering platforms such as Apache Airflow.
• Knowledge of Identity and Access Management, Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), Fine-Grained Authorization, and Zero Trust security principles.
• Experience with CI/CD, Infrastructure as Code, platform automation, observability, and reliability engineering practices.
• Understanding of platform security, risk management, compliance, and operational resilience requirements.

Preferred

• Experience building or managing Internal Developer Platforms (IDPs) and self-service engineering ecosystems.
• Background in Platform Engineering, Site Reliability Engineering, DevOps, Cloud Architecture, or Software Engineering.
• Experience driving enterprise cloud transformation and migration programs.
• Experience within financial services, capital markets, or other highly regulated industries.
• Knowledge of Google Cloud technologies including GKE, networking, observability, and security services.

Success Measures

Success in this role will be measured by:

• Platform adoption and customer satisfaction
• Growth of cloud-enabled and modernized applications
• Developer productivity improvements and self-service adoption
• Reliability, availability, and operational performance of platform services
• Reduction in onboarding friction and time-to-market
• Delivery of strategic roadmap commitments
• Platform cost optimization and operational efficiency
• Achievement of security, compliance, and risk management objectives

What's in it for you?

• Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Allyship - We strive to create an inclusive culture where every employee is empowered to reach their fullest potential, respected for who they are, and are embraced through bias-free practices and inclusive values across Scotiabank. We embrace diversity and provide opportunities for all employee to learn, grow & participate through our various Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) that span across diverse gender identities, ethnicity, race, age, ability & veterans.
• Accessibility and Workplace Accommodations - We value the unique skills and experiences each individual brings to the Bank and are committed to creating and maintaining an inclusive and accessible environment for everyone. Scotiabank continues to locate, remove, and prevent barriers so that we can build a diverse and inclusive environment while meeting accessibility requirements.
• Upskilling through online courses, cross-functional development opportunities, and tuition assistance.
• Competitive Rewards program including bonus, flexible vacation, personal, sick days, and benefits will start on day one.
• Community Engagement - no matter where you choose to work from; we offer opportunities for community engagement & belonging with our various programs.

Location(s):  Canada : Ontario : Toronto 

Scotiabank is a leading bank in the Americas. Guided by our purpose: "for every future", we help our customers, their families and their communities achieve success through a broad range of advice, products and services, including personal and commercial banking, wealth management and private banking, corporate and investment banking, and capital markets.  

At Scotiabank, we value the unique skills and experiences each individual brings to the Bank, and are committed to creating and maintaining an inclusive and accessible environment for everyone. If you require accommodation (including, but not limited to, an accessible interview site, alternate format documents, ASL Interpreter, or Assistive Technology) during the recruitment and selection process, please let our  Recruitment team know. If you require technical assistance, please click here. Candidates must apply directly online to be considered for this role. We thank all applicants for their interest in a career at Scotiabank; however, only those candidates who are selected for an interview will be contacted.