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 missioncritical 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 highimpact incidents and security events

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

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

By connecting run, reliability, security engineering, and IT risk management, this role protects INGs 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 daytoday 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 securebydesign 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 postincident learning

• R&BT and Banking Technology leadership via runboards, MTs, and executive governance for decisionmaking 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 crossplatform operational excellence through structured run governance, Obeya/warroom sessions, and clear ownership

• Ensure consistent operational transparency through runboards, metrics, and executivelevel 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 decisionmaking

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

• Own postincident and postsecurityevent 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 highrisk or highimpact 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

• Masters 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 its possible for you to strike the right balance between your career and your private life. https://careers.ing.com/en/benefits-NL (opens in new window)

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 (opens in new window)

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