Director of Software Engineering

At F5, we strive to bring a better digital world to life. Our teams empower organizations across the globe to create, secure, and run applications that enhance how we experience our evolving digital world. We are passionate about cybersecurity, from protecting consumers from fraud to enabling companies to focus on innovation. 
 

Everything we do centers around people. That means we obsess over how to make the lives of our customers, and their customers, better. And it means we prioritize a diverse F5 community where each individual can thrive.

Director of Software Engineering – BIGIP for Kubernetes

We are seeking a Director of Software Engineering to lead the development of our next‑generation cloud‑native networking, security and AI platforms. This role will own the delivery of firewall, traffic management, and AI‑driven capabilities designed to run across on‑prem Kubernetes environments and public cloud platforms.

You will lead multiple engineering teams building high‑scale, high‑performance systems at the intersection of networking, security, cloud, and AI. This is a senior leadership role with significant influence over product direction, architecture, and execution.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Lead and scale a multi‑team software engineering organization delivering cloud‑native networking, security and AI solutions
• Define and evolve the technical architecture for distributed, cloud‑native systems
• Partner closely with Product Management to shape roadmap, priorities, and delivery plans
• Guide adoption of Kubernetes‑first and microservices‑based designs, including CNFs
• Oversee development of high‑performance data plane and scalable control plane services
• Drive integration of AI/ML capabilities for traffic intelligence, security detection, and automation
• Establish best practices for software quality, reliability, security, and operational excellence
• Hire, develop, and mentor engineering managers and senior engineers
• Foster a culture of technical excellence, accountability, and innovation

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

• Strong foundation in networking fundamentals
• Experience with firewall, security and traffic management technologies
• Deep understanding of distributed systems and cloud‑native architectures

• Hands‑on familiarity with Kubernetes and container‑based platforms
• Exposure to AI inferencing optimization techniques

• Able to collaborate and thrive in a fast-paced high-performance environment.
• Regularly finds ways to communicate widely through discussions, white papers, publications and other.
• Regularly demonstrates collaboration by promoting others’ ideas, influencing others, and making teams successful.
• Regarded as technical lead by peers and management.
• Duties may require being on call periodically or working outside normal working hours (evenings and weekends).

Qualification:

• 12+ years of software engineering experience, including 5+ years in engineering leadership roles
• Proven experience leading multiple teams or managers delivering complex platforms
• Track record of shipping enterprise‑grade products in networking, security, or cloud platforms

The Job Description is intended to be a general representation of the responsibilities and requirements of the job. However, the description may not be all-inclusive, and responsibilities and requirements are subject to change.

Please note that F5 only contacts candidates through F5 email address (ending with @f5.com) or auto email notification from Workday (ending with f5.com or @myworkday.com).

Equal Employment Opportunity

It is the policy of F5 to provide equal employment opportunities to all employees and employment applicants without regard to unlawful considerations of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, sensory, physical, or mental disability, marital status, veteran or military status, genetic information, or any other classification protected by applicable local, state, or federal laws. This policy applies to all aspects of employment, including, but not limited to, hiring, job assignment, compensation, promotion, benefits, training, discipline, and termination.  F5 offers a variety of reasonable accommodations for candidates. Requesting an accommodation is completely voluntary. F5 will assess the need for accommodations in the application process separately from those that may be needed to perform the job. Request by contacting accommodations@f5.com.