Application CTO

Come work at a place where innovation and teamwork come together to support the most exciting missions in the world!

Life at F5 is never dull. We are constantly identifying new trends and disruptions, then innovating to get ahead of future customer needs—creating application services that help the world’s leading organizations deliver their critical business apps faster and with the highest levels of flexibility, security, performance, and support.

Position Summary

The Application CTO is a highly strategic role that requires a combination of focus and flexibility. The role requires a highly collaborative technical leader with strong domain knowledge in application platforms, deep business acumen in microservice application architecture, cloud platforms, monitoring and analytics. The position will work across business units within F5 and with key partners and industry players to champion F5’s next generation application services platform.

Primary Responsibilities

• Support CTO in the development, communication and execution of our next generation application services strategy; partner with cross business unit product leaders in NGINX, BIG-IP and F5 Cloud Services to define and evolve unified product architecture and product roadmaps.
• Coordinate with cross business unit (NGINX, BIG-IP, and F5 Cloud Service) product architects and engineering community to ensure key technology and engineering decisions are made in line with the unified product architecture.
• Partner with the Corporate Development team and provide technical leadership in M&A activities to help F5 expand its product portfolio in application services.
• Collaborate with Business Development to provide technical leadership to create integrated solutions with strategic technology partners.
• Partner with Solution Architect and Systems Engineering teams to create and communicate field-facing reference architectures and integrated solutions.
• Lead a small advanced development team and partner with NGINX Unit team to develop our next generation open source software-based intelligent application platform.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Strong domain knowledge in modern application platforms. Hand on experience in developing and scaling microservice-based applications. Deep knowledge in technologies including Docker container, Kubernetes, service mesh, gRPC, streaming, pub/sub, logs, application tracing, API gateway, etc.
• Strong domain knowledge in DevOps/SRE platform and tools. Hands on experience in operating microservice-based applications and cloud-style services. Deep knowledge in technologies including application monitoring, logging, tracing, telemetry, analytics, alerting, time-series databases such as Prometheus and visualization of this data using Grafana, etc.
• Strong domain knowledge in public cloud platforms (e.g. AWS, GCP, and Azure). Hands on experience in using public cloud services including open source products (e.g. IaaS, messaging, analytics, database, ML, etc.) to build scalable applications
• We are interested in meeting you for your direct experience developing, designing, and/or operating key products/services from public cloud providers (e.g. AWS, GCP, Azure). This includes core compute, network and storage services (e.g. IaaS), container platform services, as well as operational support services such as analytics, machine learning, tracing, messaging, database, and visibility required for Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) style SaaS operations.
• Strong domain knowledge of private cloud platforms (e.g. Cloud Foundry, IBM). Hands on experience in using private cloud service products including open source products (e.g. developer tools/developer framework, messaging, analytics, database, ML, etc.)
• Deep understanding of market and technology direction. Ability to articulate and translate market and technology understanding to business and product strategies and customer facing solutions.
• Experience leading and driving complex projects with multiple work streams spanning different businesses.
• Demonstrated team leadership capabilities and ability to work effectively with all levels.
• Breadth of thinking and operationalization to lead work streams while owning and driving details.
• Candidate must be outstanding at engaging with execs and ideally has experience working with customers.
• Proven excellent oral and written communication skills (including exceptional technical storytelling).
• Have a passion and proven record for execution with measurable results in dynamic, fast-paced environment.
• Domestic and some international travel up to 30%
• Serve as a world-class role model for others demonstrating the F5 behaviors – Click here to view F5’s Culture and Behaviors:
• We are Owners
• We choose Speed
• We create a more diverse & inclusive F5
• We obsess over customer needs
• We help each other thrive
• Leadership Skills: Create clarity and alignment. Find and shape brilliance. Boldly raise the bar.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science plus minimum of 10 years of related work experience, or equivalent work experience.
• Advanced degrees and/or experience is a plus

F5 Networks, Inc. is an equal opportunity employer and we embrace diversity. Our success isn’t driven solely by what we do. We also care deeply about how we do it. At F5, our culture is how we live, every single day. And it’s producing extraordinary results—not only for our customers, but also for our employees. We understand that your life is about more than just work, so we’re committed to a culture that supports your whole life. We offer work/life integration programs like Freedom to Flex, dynamic employee inclusion groups, paid maternity/paternity leave, tuition assistance for professional development, a comprehensive mentoring program, rewards/recognition, and so much more. At F5, we truly do help each other thrive and it shows: F5 has been named one of the “World’s Most Admired Companies” by Fortune magazine for the past two years in a row.

And this commitment to living our culture doesn’t just exist within our offices; it extends into our communities through Global Good initiatives such as employee matching, volunteer opportunities, and the F5 Foundation. Our employees are passionate about making a difference in the world.

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.

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. Reasonable accommodation is available for qualified individuals with disabilities, upon request.