Head of Platform Operations

Originally posted on 6 May 2026.

The Global Head of Platform Operations is critical to safeguarding the reliability, resilience, and security of Retail & Banking Technology. This role ensures that mission‑critical customer and business platforms operate safely, securely, and within risk appetite, by combining operational excellence with strong IT risk and security engineering stewardship.

The role is pivotal in:

• Preventing, detecting, and responding to high‑impact incidents and security events

• Translating regulatory, IT risk, and security requirements into practical engineering and operational controls

• Providing senior management with a clear, evidence‑based view on operational resilience, technology risk, and control effectiveness

By connecting run, reliability, security engineering, and IT risk management, this role protects ING’s customers, brand, and regulatory standing while enabling stable delivery and innovation at scale.

The team

This role reports hierarchically into the CIO Retail & Banking Technology and functionally to the Head of Engineering & Reliability. The role represents Platform Operations in management and executive forums.

• Key stakeholders and partner teams

• Platform Operations leadership & run teams – accountable for day‑to‑day stability, availability, and operational discipline across platforms

• SRE, Reliability & Observability teams – driving reliability engineering, error budgets, resilience patterns, and operational telemetry

• Security Engineering & Cyber Defence teams – aligning secure‑by‑design engineering, vulnerability management, incident response, and detection capabilities

• IT Risk Management & Operational Risk stakeholders – connecting operational performance to risk appetite, controls, issues, and regulatory expectations

• Major Incident Management (GMIM) & Crisis stakeholders – leading technology response, escalation, and post‑incident learning

• R&BT and Banking Technology leadership – via runboards, MTs, and executive governance for decision‑making and prioritisation

Platform Operations consists of the following teams, staffed across Netherlands, Romania and Philippines and this role interacts and is accountable for activities that partner with the following teams:

• Site Reliability Engineering; SRE ensures service availability, resilience, and performance to maintain platform stability and reliability.

• Service Delivery;Service Delivery drives consistent, predictable IT operations performance to support global banking platforms.

• Risk & Security Engineering;Security & Risk Engineering team safeguards platforms from threats and ensures regulatory compliance for secure operations.

• Remote platform delivery; Delegated Platform Operations of Banking Technology Services in Public Cloud for ING Australia

Role and responsibilities

• Operational & reliability leadership

• Lead the Platform Operations management cadence, setting clear priorities across stability, reliability, and resilience topics

• Drive cross‑platform operational excellence through structured run governance, Obeya/war‑room sessions, and clear ownership

• Ensure consistent operational transparency through runboards, metrics, and executive‑level reporting

• Is the bridge and guide to Retail countries and HUBs where required, regarding IT Risk and Security standards and practices

• Incident, crisis & security event leadership

• Act as senior operational lead during major technology and security incidents, ensuring effective coordination, escalation, and decision‑making

• Partner with Security Engineering and Cyber Defence during security events and vulnerabilities impacting R&BT platforms

• Own post‑incident and post‑security‑event learning to structurally reduce operational and security risk

• IT risk management & control effectiveness

Embed IT risk management into daily operations by:

• Ensuring critical services operate within defined risk appetite

• Connecting incidents, vulnerabilities, and weaknesses to risk issues and remediation

• Represent Platform Operations in IT risk, resilience, and regulatory governance (e.g. operational resilience, disaster recovery, security posture)

• Drive closure of risk findings and issues by aligning engineering, operations, and risk stakeholders

Security & resilience by design

• Ensure security engineering and resilience principles are embedded into operational practices (secure configurations, least privilege, monitoring, recovery capabilities)

• Align with SRE and security teams on resilience patterns, controls, and engineering standards

• Strengthen detection and observability capabilities for both operational and security risks

Change, release & operational safeguarding

• Influence change and release governance to protect critical services, especially around high‑risk or high‑impact changes

• Ensure operational readiness and security considerations are addressed before production changes

Planning, capacity & financial stewardship

• Own Platform Operations planning cycles, including demand, capacity, and financial forecasting

• Balance operational, resilience, and security priorities within agreed budgets and strategic objectives

About you

• Master’s degree in computer science or comparable work experience.

• Senior IT leader with 15+ years of experience in IT management roles in complex, global environments.

• Proven track record in leading large-scale, business-critical platforms and experience with SRE, Reliability and IT Risk Management

• Strong stakeholder management skills, with the ability to operate confidently at executive level

• Passion for emerging technology, architecture, reliability & security engineering

• Demonstrated ability to lead geographically distributed, multicultural teams

• Proven capability to attract, develop and retain top talent.

• Strong understanding of how to design, build and operate modern enterprise platforms, with a clear technical vision for the future

Rewards and benefits
We want to make sure that it’s possible for you to strike the right balance between your career and your private life. https://careers.ing.com/en/benefits-NL

The benefits of working with us at ING include:

• 25-28 vacation days depending on contract

• Pension scheme

• 13th month salary

• 8% Holiday payment

• Hybrid working

• Personal growth and challenging work with endless possibilities

• An informal working environment with innovative colleagues

About us
Curious about how ING empowers people and businesses to move forward? https://careers.ing.com/en/working-in-the-netherlands

Questions?
Contact the recruiter attached to the advertisement. Want to apply directly? Please upload your CV and motivation letter by clicking the ‘Apply’ button.