Jeff Ligon

About Jeff Ligon

Director-level engineering leader with 8+ years building and scaling high-performing teams in the cloud-native ecosystem. Currently leading a multi-functional organization of 200+ associates at Red Hat, driving innovation in Kubernetes, OpenShift, and enterprise container platforms that power mission-critical infrastructure worldwide.My journey combines deep technical expertise with proven leadership at scale. With a PhD in Computer Science and AI research background from NSA-funded projects at NC State, I bring both strategic vision and hands-on technical credibility to complex engineering challenges. At Red Hat, I\'ve led teams contributing to foundational open source projects including Docker, Kubernetes, CRI-O, Podman, and Buildah. I successfully integrated the CoreOS acquisition and championed immutable infrastructure strategies across the organization.For the past five years, I\'ve been building Red Hat\'s In-Vehicle Operating System engineering program from the ground up, pioneering the adoption of container technologies in automotive applications. This work sits at the cutting edge of bringing enterprise-grade cloud-native practices to safety-critical embedded systems - proving that containers aren\'t just for data centers.My technical foundation includes developing AI systems as part of a $60MM NSA grant at NC State, building continuous integration pipelines at scale, and teaching computer science to hundreds of students. This combination of research rigor, hands-on development, and teaching experience shapes how I approach leadership today.I thrive at the intersection of technical depth and people leadership - whether that\'s architecting solutions for in-vehicle systems, growing engineering talent, or navigating the fast-paced landscape of cloud-native technology. Regular 1:1s with associates, peers, and stakeholders aren\'t just part of the job - they\'re what makes the work meaningful.Core expertise: Engineering leadership at scale, In-Vehicle Operating Systems, Linux Containers, automotive containerization, open source strategy, team building, AI/ML research, Immutable Infrastructure

Experience

1. Senior Principal Software Engineer

   Red Hat

   Oct 2025 — Present

Education

• North Carolina State University

  PhD, Computer Science

  2005 — 2010

• North Carolina State University

  MS, Computer Science

  2003 — 2005

• North Carolina State University

  BA, Graphic Design

  1993 — 1997

Skills

• Objective-C
• Continuous Integration
• Iphone Development
• Photoshop
• Graphic Design
• Public Speaking
• Game Design
• Ios
• Lecturing
• Encryption
• Html
• Css
• Computer Science
• Web Development
• C
• Swift
• Xcode
• Programming
• Software Development
• Ios Development
• Os X
• Xcodebuild
• Mac Os X
• Html 5
• Ota Deployment
• Agile Methodologies
• Git
• Scrum
• Algorithms