Description
We are seeking a visionary Director of Software Engineering to lead a critical infrastructure organization. In this role, you will transition from focused sprint execution to defining the "Release to Release" strategy for a comprehensive infrastructure health and change safety platform.
You will lead a high-performing organization—including Managers, Principal Engineers (PMTS), and Lead Engineers (LMTS)—tasked with automating compute and network infrastructure lifecycle operations at scale across our physical data center footprint and public cloud environments. This is a role for a leader who builds lasting, cross-functional relationships and drives strategy to ensure low-drama, high-value results.
Key Responsibilities
Strategic Leadership & Vision
Release-to-Release Strategy: Define the roadmap for Infrastructure Automation and Change Safety, shifting focus from short-term goals to long-term delivery of connected features.
Business Alignment: Influence and own the Product Strategy for the domain; partner with stakeholders on prioritization, organizational shifts, and KPI alignment.
Cross-Cloud Influence: Represent your technology stack in Cross-Cloud discussions. Build partnerships with Product Management and Hardware Engineering to support broader business goals.
Engineering Execution & Architecture
Architectural Accountability: Scrutinize all architectural decisions through rigorous review. Own the technical direction, including the integration of AI/ML for production automation.
Operational Excellence: Prioritize Quality, Availability (99.999%), and Security. Maintain working plans for performance optimization and technical debt reduction.
Incident Command: Personally lead teams during high-severity production incidents. Drive down production support costs through resilient system design.
People Management & Org Development
Management of Managers: Coach and groom Managers and Sr. Managers to effectively lead their respective teams.
Talent Growth: Mentor high-level individual contributors (LMTS/PMTS) and facilitate their growth through Talent Development principles.
Resource Management: Manage budgets (Merit, Promotion, QPI) and pivot resources to align with evolving business priorities.
Culture Building: Foster an "Ohana" culture of inclusivity, constant learning, and psychological safety.
Delivery & Collaboration
Project Accountability: Maintain full accountability for the engineering aspects of project delivery, including performance, quality, and productivity tools.
Cross-Functional Partnership: Act as a trusted partner to Quality, Capacity Planning, and Product Security teams to enable repeated, low-drama delivery.
Communication: Communicate early and clearly to keep projects on track and diffuse cross-team conflict.
Required Qualifications
Education: Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field.
Experience: 10+ years of software engineering experience focusing on distributed systems, infrastructure, or cloud platforms.
Leadership: 5+ years of people management experience, including at least 2 years managing other managers.
Technical Domain: Deep understanding of distributed system design patterns, cloud computing (AWS/Azure/GCP/Kubernetes), and infrastructure automation.
Org Scale: Proven ability to manage an organization of 20+ engineers and geographically distributed teams.
Strategic Agility: Experience translating a "North Star" vision into well-engineered solutions and making tech decisions based on customer value.
Preferred Qualifications
AI/ML in Ops: Experience leveraging AI/ML or statistical models to inform production automation at scale.
Technical Fluency: Familiarity with Golang, Java, or Python to guide code and design reviews.
Change Management: Experience building systems that manage high-risk infrastructure changes safely.
Open Source: Contributions to or familiarity with open-source infrastructure tools.