Associate Director - Service Engineering

Associate Director - Infrastructure Operations & Engineering (Cloud & On-Prem)
Key Responsibilites
Strategic & Leadership
Act as a trusted advisor to client Infrastructure/Cloud leadership, shaping a multi-year roadmap across cloud engineering, network operations, and infrastructure modernization.
Lead and manage multi-disciplinary teams spanning Cloud Engineering and On-Prem Network Operations; build talent, coach leaders, and establish a culture of accountability and continuous improvement.
Own service delivery outcomes—availability, performance, security, and SLA compliance—across cloud and network services; drive operational governance for Incident, Problem, Change, and Major Incident management.
Partner with client VPs, Directors, and Chief Architects to align architecture standards, reference patterns, and guardrails for cloud and network platforms.
Drive transformation initiatives including cloud migration & modernization, landing zone strategy, network modernization (e.g., routing/switching, firewall upgrades, SD-WAN), and platform engineering practices.
Champion Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and automation-first operations using tools such as Terraform/ARM/Bicep, CI/CD, and runbook automation to reduce toil and improve reliability.
Establish and mature observability and telemetry practices (monitoring, alerting, event correlation, dashboards) to improve proactive detection, MTTR, and service health.
Define and govern capacity planning, resilience engineering, and disaster recovery readiness; ensure regular validation and continuous hardening of critical services.
Partner with Security and Compliance stakeholders to implement secure-by-design principles, vulnerability remediation, access controls, and audit readiness across cloud and network domains.
Manage stakeholder communications with executive presence—translate technical risks and trade-offs into business impact, decisions, and clear action plans.
Oversee vendor and partner engagements as needed (tooling, cloud providers, network OEMs/MSPs), ensuring performance, accountability, and value realization.
Build KPI-driven operating reviews (weekly/monthly/QBR) with clear metrics, trends, and continuous improvement initiatives tied to outcomes and cost optimization.
Required Certifications
ITIL v4 Foundation (or higher)
Microsoft Azure certification: AZ-104 (Administrator) and/or AZ-305 (Solutions Architect)
Networking certification: CCNA / CCNP (or equivalent enterprise networking credential)
One of: PMP / PRINCE2 / SAFe (preferred for transformation delivery)
Preferred / Differentiators
Hands-on experience with hybrid cloud design patterns, landing zones, identity/network guardrails, and enterprise-scale Azure networking.
Strong experience with IaC, Git-based workflows, and CI/CD automation (Azure DevOps / GitHub Actions).
Experience implementing observability and event correlation platforms (e.g., Datadog, SolarWinds, ThousandEyes, NetBrain, Dynatrace) and driving SRE practices.
Exposure to enterprise architecture and governance frameworks (e.g., TOGAF) and operating model design (CoE / platform teams).
The Ideal Candidate
Executive Communicator – able to seamlessly engage with client VPs, Directors, and Chief Architects; translates complex technical topics into crisp, decision-oriented narratives.
Pragmatic Transformer – balances modernization ambition with operational rigor; delivers roadmap outcomes while keeping services stable and secure.
Natural Influencer – builds trust across cross-functional stakeholders, resolves conflict, and aligns teams to shared outcomes.
Excellence-Driven Leader – sets high standards for engineering quality, documentation, automation, and continuous improvement.
Professional Experience/Qualifications
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or related field (or equivalent experience).
15+ years of experience across enterprise infrastructure, cloud engineering, and/or network operations, with significant time in client-facing delivery environments.
Proven leadership experience managing and scaling multi-disciplinary engineering and operations teams; demonstrated ability to mentor managers and senior engineers.
Strong understanding of enterprise networking (routing/switching, firewalls, SD-WAN) and cloud platform operations, including security, governance, and cost optimization.
Track record of leading transformation programs (cloud adoption, modernization, automation, observability) with measurable outcomes in reliability, efficiency, and risk reduction.
Exceptional stakeholder management and communication skills; comfortable driving executive-level discussions and aligning multiple workstreams.

Work arrangement
Hybrid